It Takes a Lot to Know a Man

This morning I drove my kids and their Dad to the airport where they are Brazil-bound. Me, I'm sticking around here. I've got a bunch of work that needs to get done this week, and although I'll certainly miss my babes, it feels good to have some space.

So far I've done some work, taken a nap, gone for a run, and been to a hot yoga class. The yoga class was taught by an instructor who was recommended to me by a friend. He was pretty great during the class, I have to admit, but the best part came at the end of class when he sang this song to us during savasana:

It takes a lot to know a man
It takes a lot to understand
The warrior, the sage
The little boy enraged

It takes a lot to know a woman
A lot to understand what's humming
The honeybee, the sting
The little girl with wings

It takes a lot to give, to ask for help
To be yourself, to know and love what you live with
It takes a lot to breathe, to touch, to feel
The slow reveal of what another body needs

It takes a lot to know a man
A lot to know, to understand
The father and the son
The hunter and the gun

It takes a lot know a woman
A lot to comprehend what's coming
The mother and the child
The muse and the beguiled

It takes a lot to give, to ask for help
To be yourself, to know and love what you live with
It takes a lot to breathe, to touch, to feel
The slow reveal of what another body needs

What are you so afraid to lose?
What is it you're thinking that will happen if you do?
What are you so afraid to lose?

I don't think I'm afraid of losing anything, other than my kids. But maybe I have other walls I cannot see?

In any case, it was an amazing way to end class. It probably would have been no matter what song he chose, but this song happens to be a new-to-me song by an artist I like, which is even better!

Eskimo

My new backyard, under 18" of snow!

Having received an absolute dumping of snow the week before Christmas (complete with two snow days!), on Christmas morning I was able to go cross country skiing with my boyfriend.

It was a gorgeous day -- so sunny -- and the snow glistened as we skied. It was absolutely beautiful, and this song was playing inside my head much of the time:

So I look to my eskimo friend

I look to my eskimo friend

I look to my eskimo friend

Never hotter than when he's out enjoying one of his favorite sports, indeed, I looked to my eskimo friend over and over again during our adventure. And then later that day, when my kids came back, I looked to him in a different way.

A way in which he may be less comfortable, but can also be quite joyful -- as fellow witness to the wonder that is my children...

Delicate

I was in a Damien Rice mood today, and when I fired up this album and heard the words to this song this afternoon:

So why do you fill my sorrow

With the words you've borrowed

From the only place you've known

And why do you sing Hallelujah

If it means nothing to you

Why do you sing with me at all?

I had a couple of reactions. One was the truth in the fact that when we hurt other people, we tend to do it from the part of us that has been hurt, and not from the place that feels secure in the world or in our own skin.

And the other was a heavy-hearted joining in his questioning of why people go along with things in which they do not believe. I suppose they, or maybe I should say we again here, because I'm sure I haven't managed to completely avoid this in my own life, are under the (mistaken) impression that they "have to" because of a desire to be liked, or fit in, or keep the peace, even if keeping that peace means losing some of the precious peace that can only be found within oneself when one's actions are in alignment with one's beliefs.

The Blower's Daughter

I've spent a bunch of my life judging myself or others for "needing" to be in a relationship to be happy -- for wanting that loving feeling "too much." I'm here to say I'm done with all that. Guess what, people? We're mammals. We feel better closer to each other. It's warmer, literally and figuratively. Guess what else? When the warmth goes away with the person we're married to or in a relationship with, we're going to seek it elsewhere. Can we work really hard to prevent that from happening? Sort of. We can work really hard, but sometimes we can't see what needs to happen to fix it, in ourselves or in the other person, and I think we need to cut ourselves some slack as a species and stop holding ourselves up to some cultural expectation that often involves staying in a space where the love's no longer flowing.

In the best of all possible worlds, when we find ourselves in that space, we tell our partner it's over before we put out the mating call again. But this learning how to love, both ourselves and others, well, it often involves not the best but the worst of all possible worlds -- especially when we become driven by a fear that love is scarce -- and feel we need to possess to feel secure.

As hard as I tried after I left my husband, I couldn't stand to hear about him dating other people. Until I started to let the love in from another man, and then I was suddenly cool with it. At first I judged myself for that, too. But I get it now. I was just afraid that love was scarce, that I'd given up my chance for it. Once I knew that wasn't true, I felt so much more able to let him go.

Damien Rice's haunting voice was one of the most powerful parts of a powerful movie grappling with this subject: Closer. And in this song, he arrives at the same conclusion I do here:

I can't take my mind off you

I can't take my mind...

My mind...my mind...

'Til I find somebody new

Cannonball

In the bathtub this morning, I was working on sections of my book. In my head. I find that it's a lot easier to think about it than to type it. I was thinking about describing the bird tattoo on my arm, and about its significance for me. When one of my friends first saw it, he said: "It's definitely leaving, isn't it?" I answered that it was flying. "Yeah," he said, "But there's flying away and flying back home, and it's definitely flying away." Slowly, I realized he was right -- and that while I had flown away (left my marriage), eventually I was going to need to fly back to the nest and rest.

As I was having this realization, I was also falling in love, which made the idea of resting in the nest infinitely more pleasant than it had been for the last handful of years. I started to fantasize that my man would get a tattoo of a nest on his arm, and that's where Annie (the name of my bird) would rest. Looking back on it now, I consider this a step in the right direction -- I was willing to surrender before I'd completely exhausted myself from flying, to be fed and kept safe.

This morning, however, I realized that the nest, whether or not it is ever manifested as a tattoo, belongs on my body; that I need to contain both the capacity to fly and the space to rest right here in my very self.

And then I heard Damien's voice, a voice I listened to over and over again after I left my husband -- the phase in which I had flown but refused to consider resting, the phase in which I lost a bunch of weight because I refused to be fed.

Looking at the lyrics now, from a considerably sunnier vantage point, I'm not sure exactly what to take from them:

Stones taught me to fly

Love taught me to lie

Life taught me to die

So it's not hard to fall

When you float like a cannonball

But I think maybe the point is that in order to really know something, we have to understand both that thing and its opposite...

9 Crimes

Up late talking on the phone tonight, I put the ipod on shuffle before going to sleep. I found this number by Damien Rice to be a hauntingly beautiful melody. This is the first time I've heard it, and I'm going to have to give it a few more listens, but here are some of his powerful words:

Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I'd do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be thinking of you
It's the wrong time
For somebody new
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse

Is that alright?
Give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright?
If you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it
Is that alright?
Give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright
With you?

Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I'd do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be cheating on you
It's the wrong time
She's pulling me through
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse

As I drifted off to sleep, I felt grateful for my freedom to explore something new, and compassion for those who are in the position he's singing about here...