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Remembering Mickie, Entry Num. 1: She

She bid us farewell some Sunday’s ago and life has been surreal ever since
Sunday’s have a stigma now that sting me upon every awake
She lives in memories and dreams
and it seems unfair that even there
she is too distant,
far too removed from my touch or my teeth—
I can’t feel her or taste her with any words…so I bite
She is becoming a collection of vagaries
my mind can’t seem to park on one main thing concerning her—
her shaved head, freckled face or turquoise finger nails
She is all smiles in my intentional reveries
but there are moments when my mind’s eye recalls
her decadence and misery
It was hurtful to watch her slip slow into a solemn slumber
But peace was upon her when I last saw her body
at rest
empty of her personality,
void of her struggle,
expired from her pain,
a mere husk of stolen vitality
It was cancer that snatched her from me,
from sunrises at arm’s reach, from downtowns and beaches,
from sisters’ night out and patient privileges
from human love and familiy
It was cancer that took her victory
Leaving us with only her name on our lips
convincing ourselves if we pretend long enough
the missing of her will disintegrate into our fabrics
but never seep through our skin
when the wretched truth is
we are concaved
searching for meaning in our own living
meaning to live in our mourning
looking for joy to remove our weeping
when remembering stops hurting
and Sunday morning’s are just another day to pray

erm…It is Well
#RememberingMickie

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Returning to Me

I come and go with my musings and moments of inspiration. I casually wander around in both the mundane and versatile details of the life I breath; along dingy city streets or any countryside densly popoulated with colorful greens and trees. The sight of nomads backpacking, mom-toting babies on their daily walk among quaint homes, bucolic churches or plush green feilds converging into a blue sky—they always pull me.

When it comes to my fine art, I am equally committed and inconsistent on any given day. I am bound to urgent napkin notes and envelope poetry…though less scatter brained, as I can now thought broadcast into the memo of a smart phone. Except it’s been too many days since I have stilled myself in a space and moment to capture and memorialize any part of this life. It’s not easy being me.

I carry this brain and this heart and these hands and on more than once or twice a day, these feelers and seers nudge me to take note of, hold remembrance too, take pause and immortalize the givings and misgivings of the day. And these past few weeks, I’ve had plenty. I continue to walk in lessons and impending victories. At times I am self aware enough to dialogue through the doubts and the discoveries.

But I know one thing for sure, no matter how busy or self occupied, the letters of the alphabet are always calling me. They implore me to shuffle them into mixed media and prose imagery. It is the strongest desire to run free in the expanse of vocabulary that perpetually haunts me. I feel I will implode if I do not give in to the fulfilling of the release. I have to give my words away. They do not belong to me. Time and time again, with the simplest expression, a caption, a thought given away via any frequency…this is confirmed for me. There is someone always in the point of need and I meet them with a soliloquy.

Which leads me always to one sound conviction: He gives me words to fill-full His thin-skinned vessels and all the beautiful, bruised and beloved ones. I am among the humans He uses to scribe messages of light and love and beauty. Of hope and inspiration, and fragility. He funnels and filters and flows through me. What a heavy blessing to bear; truly a brilliant burden, to blend faith with sentiment to bind beings and their belongings with brave words in the brevity of any moment. And I wouldn’t pass it over ever. I know, I am called to lay all the breathtaking, beauty and benevolence down. I am called to write.

erm…It is Well

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Be, Do, Have

Be well in your going and knowing
Be thrilled, don’t wonder:
All things are possible!
It will all work out for your greater good--
Dwell in that fascinating freedom
and in it be flexible
with your heart, your hands, your thoughts, your will
Rest assure in the courage you have inside
It is fortified by a faith from beyond the plentiful clouds
Flow in the steady stream of abundance...
Abundance of clarity, abundance of focus,
abundance of creativity, beauty, and of glee
Remember Beloved, monitor your fears and your doubts
You have no idea what you are made of, made for, made to do
But know, along with a few miracles here and there
Your life will make sure you know it
Be well in your becoming

—a few words He gave to me

erm…It is Well

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On the Other Side of Through

Having lived through the casualities of impatience and stubborness; the collision of pride and humility...It is good to be in this place. Having lived through the seeming permanence of loss and displacement, it is refreshing to be in this place.

This place of knowledge; this place of wisdom. This place of restoration of faith. This place of obedience and it's reward. A place of happiness and adoration for my journey. This is a place where lessons learned are remembered, consulted and applied. This place where admiration for my life is an honor, a gift to be had.

That moment when my 12 year-old daughter can say to me, I am proud of you: Priceless! To know that she pays attention and most likely has been for a long time before she could articulate her thoughts today...

Today, living in the wonderment of submission, this place of agreeing with life and the unforced, natural flow of it. This place of trusting God and seeking Him first. This is a magnificent space to be in. This is the other side of through.  

Through...(through trial and error, through suffering and struggling, through doubting and not knowning, through living)...

Today my mouth is filled with praise and laughter because now I reap in joy all that I sowed in tears. Life is so well and so worth living here on the other side of through. But you have to make it through to get to here! In case you need reminding, you can make it. 

The life I live today, I did not imagine it. It is better than the thoughts I held for myself. Far exceeds the aspirations I envisioned--and to think this is merely the beginning. 

What I know for sure, gratitude is attractive. It was good for me to have suffered for a while, for He has establisehd me and perfected my way. Grace is real. Miracles are for us. Life is beautiful. 

erm...It is Well

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My Issue with Blood

We will ask God
She said
We will seek His face on your behalf
That He would extend his generous grace upon the flesh of you
That He would make all the skin and bones that would propel you
Yet maintaining your humble spirit
Healed and whole

We will ask God
She said

We will appeal to His heart
to make a blessing of your infirmity
to touch you there ever so softly
to heal the feeling of your anxiety
to tuck comfort in your ability to choose trust
Swallow your mustard seed Beloved,
You are always well

We will ask God
She said
To remind me...

As if all that we bring and all that we bear
Did not come from His yes and His Amen
But it is a blessing too when He does not agree
Because we know He who ordains our expected end
will carry us through it
And it is perfect
Clearer than our eye can see
Louder than our ear can here
More magnificent than our heart can contain

We will ask God
She said
He already heard
 

This poem was inspired by a darling, faith-full believer, who upon my (unconfirmed) news of having fibroids, responded with: We will ask God. And for whatever reason, her resolute answer inspired me to poetry. 

WARNING! Some real adult/womanhood content follows.
Anyone who reads me knows, I like to find things interesting. And I find it rather interesting that (as women) our issues flow from and through our bodies by blood shed. That our dark wombs can and will create substance of our issues and purge them out from us as blood. Interesting, that from our private spaces, unknown and unseen; from our vaginas, our infirmaties or impurities flow free.

Having experienced the heaviest and most uncomfortable menstruation of my entire life, I have never been more clear on the value, purpose, impact, and meaning of my vagina! Yup, that's what I said. To think that my issues--flow from my body--through my coochie! This one thought really encourgaes me to further scrutinize who and their issues I will allow to enter into my sacred, self correcting body. 

WORTH MENTIONING! This past month has given me an entirely new perspective on an unnamed woman in the Bible, referenced always as "the woman with the issue of blood".  While I did not suffer the stigma of being "ceremonially unclean", I certainly felt a hint of what the weight of her socail isolation could have felt like. And while I have not suffered this condition for years, my two to three weeks was more than I wanted to bear. 

It is not a good feeling to have zero control over what and how your body changes/reacts through natural causes. And it could be a stuggle adapting to a new normal. But I will not let it be. I took my time to decide that surgery is the best option for me. I will take my time to recover. And I will continue to appreciate that as I go through ups and downs, along the way, I can still be inspired to write. 

erm... It is Well

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The Women Before Me and Our Demons

Saint or sinner
Saints or sinners
Pick your poison
Offer a prayer
How many of them
went to Heaven for me...


I think I thought to think...that I only, was the one adulteress in the lineage of my feminality, only to discover a distinct pathology of self-righteous infidelity. 
I sat to think and thought that only I, had committed the heaviest of sins and deviated from a heritage of holy sanctuary, to give away a sacred body to another mortal whom did not belong to me. Only to discover over hard drinks and sweet tea, that the wiles of me were innate, a passive transgression from the women who bled heavy long before me. 

Not that I want to give away the secrets buried with the dead or the secrets under the bed of the alive, but these demons were at the bedside of my creation, breathing heavy for me, long before I closed eyes, to form lips for a first kiss. But I would be remiss if I did not mention, I have a notice for every demon that would come to demean us, me. 

Notice to proceed--away from every corridor around my feet, every breath of air near to me. Flee! From my time. From the corners of my womb's memory and the daughter who came from within me. An eviction notice I give, to that which comes to perpetuate a promiscuous misery. To stir the extravagance of messy sheets and fantasies later draped in melancholy, for love is never birthed from unrequited affinity. 

All that to say, it is true, we repeat histories and destinies; nothing is new under the sun or the soft fall of rain. The curses are not far behind the generations to come; we owe the liberty and beauty of transparency to every daughter coming into her self-reality. The women before me, how many of them went to heaven for me? Them, seated up there in the right hand, interceding for me. Love is ahead

erm...It is Well

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Love Lingers

Therefore, do not fight in your within
wrestling to unlearn the art of it;  
un-loving won't work 

Love lingers therefore, 
to bridge our disconnects, 
to keep us gentle in the rough
and merciful in the mess of things 

Accept that Love lingers
to remind us of our long forgotten selves
when we were just babes in the belly of life
long before we learned to suckle words
and starve feelings 

We were always born of a love undefiled
with a passionate purpose

Love lingers to keep us human 

erm...It is Well

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