Shine

I can see it in your eyes

What I know in my heart is true 

That our love it has faded 

Like the summer run through 

So we'll walk down the shoreline 

One last time together 

Feel the wind blow our wanderin' hearts Like a feather 

But who knows what's waiting 

In the wings of time 

Dry your eyes 

We gotta go where we can shine 

Don't be hiding in sorrow 

Or clinging to the past 

With your beauty so precious 

And the season so fast 

No matter how cold the horizon appear 

Or how far the first night 

When I held you near 

You gotta rise from these ashes 

Like a bird of flame 

Step out of the shadow 

We've gotta go where we can shine 

For all that we struggle 

For all we pretend 

It don't come down to nothing 

Except love in the end 

And ours is a road 

That is strewn with goodbyes 

But as it unfolds 

As it all unwinds 

Remember your soul is the one thing 

You just can't compromise 

Take my hand 

We're gonna go where we can shine 

We're gonna go where we can shine 

We're gonna go where we can shine 

(and look, and look) 

Through the windows of midnight 

Moonfoam and silver

-- David Gray

Afire

Centered, staring, watching you
Wondering if you read past my eyes

Lost in sensation i'll never share

Watching you walk, smile, laugh
Knowing this feeling all too well

Traveling in circles while you're right there

Destiny testing me, all questions and answers
There was darkness that no one saw

Afire with life, now i'm ready to play
Take your chances, come dance if you dare

Our Deepest Fear

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

-Marianne Williamson

Waiting...

Photographic Memory

Always at the strangest times, that is when my life decides to nudge me. That is when destiny, randomness or all of the other demi-gods that rule my life decide to toy with me, make me feel, make me think, make me remember.

I remember a photo, in particular, from high school. Standing outside the front doors of the school on a cool autumn day. We were going to a theater rehearsal. We were young and foolish and innocent beyond our own comprehension at the time.

Now, that photograph is at the beginning of a slideshow behind my weary eyes. I never had a photographic memory, but I always seem to remember the photographs.

Completely Tidal

The world and it's motions do not move because of us. We are lucky to catch the waves of the world, go with the flow and not be fighting, swimming the wrong direction, hoping to get somewhere with all our efforts.

So goes the happiness, the sadness, the ups and downs of our lives. It is not that we should control those ups and downs. There is no set of controls to adjust where our lives are. We can only ride the wave, staying faithful and true to ourselves and keeping a vigilant lookout for happiness.

I take the happiness, when it comes, for granted sometimes. As a defense mechanism, I discount it because I'm afraid to accept it. Better to not have it than to lose it? I believe in happiness that comes in those small doses, easy to accept and uplifting. Those doses that get me through mydays.

When joy or happiness or comfort rolls in like some tidal wave crashing against the shore of normal existence, I want to find shelter from it's effects. I think I might drown from the immensity of it all. I feel guilty too, in the midst of my fear of happiness. I feel guilty that I cannot give that happiness to those around me. I feel fear that they hate me for my epiphanies. I want to share somehow, even knowing it's not possible.

Standing in front of her, completely tidal, drowning in those misty blue eyes, I am content and confused. I am afloat and falling. I am asleep and dreaming and awake and wrapped in the proximity of her touch. Stretched over a chasm of the unexpected, my doubts slip and fall, unable to drag me down with them.

Magnetic Poem

storm goddess
shadow the still sea
moan deliriously
together with diamonds
crushing moon mother
like white winter beauty

Losing Everything

What do I have to lose except for everything? What do I have to worry about except falling with no parachute into some situation I have no control over? When did I start caring whether it was dangerous or irresponsible or just plain fucking crazy? I could look in the mirror right now, even just into some reflective surface and see myself and wonder who the hell I am to be so prudent, so responsible, so cautious and paranoid.

Losing everything is the risk that I take every day, with every decision to live my life the way I want to, to be the person I want to be, not who they want me to be. Everything could vanish so easily. Nothing makes things vanish faster than ignoring them, letting them be stagnant because I am too cautious to take the chance.

This is dangerous.
This could end in a flaming heap of heartache and drama.
This could fall apart around us before we can stop it.
This...is living.

Perception Of Time

Crossing my body with powerful lines
I have no deception, perception of time
Or of space and pain that has found in me physical
Translated, unstated and gone

Bright lights or midnights all crowded in circles
Spinning, not winning, no battles to lose
Still I am left with no highway to travel
My way is harder with no one to share

A memory vanished without explanation
A space in that place where my heart should have been
I have no deception, perception of time
I have fallen, I'm falling
And I'm just fine

Dancing Like Wall Shadows

I remember the late nights with only myself, so long ago. I remember the discovery and analysis from dark, gentle conversations with demons that belonged to me, and I to them. I remember my eyes flickering in my drowsiness, dancing like wall shadows across my eyes, trying to force me to sleep. I sit here in the dark, a candle burning. So easy to recall those nights, when reminders surround me.

Nighttime feels safe. Turning to look at myself, in this mirror of sudden recall, I see the same person. A person lost but always following some course that has no explanation other than it feels right. In some twisted simple way everything works out in my head. It all makes sense when there is nothing to see but inside.

I wonder where the path is going now. I am scared that this same person I am so capable of being will not be prepared for the road ahead and where it may lead. I am not running. Something must be keeping those anchors that keep me here from breaking.

Still I am not concerned or worried or sad about what it may be that lets me stay. I have never wound up somewhere, met someone, loved someone that I could argue my luck. So, like dark self-analysis, I smile at memories of tomorrow.

A Thousand Reasons

There are reasons for those things in life that we do not understand. There is a reason for time and for feelings we don't care for and for events that we despise. There is reason for pain and for hate and for waking up that next day. There is reason for hiding and for deciding to re-emerge into the light, even if your eyes are squinting from the brightness.

There are a thousand reasons why I call you friend and why I will always keep a wonder in the back of my mind, even in the back of my soul. A small what-if that only serves to enhance the complex simplicity of our relationship. There is a reason why you are called Beauty. Sometimes beauty is all anyone needs.

Some Sort Of Starlight

It was cloudy last night. Though, in my romantic youth, I often heard a friend of mine say that there were always stars, we just didn't always see them. In that youth, that notion made so much sense to me. To be able to look up at the clouds and still wish on some star as if they were shining brightly. Now, the notion seems heartfelt and somehow more ridiculous than in the past.

Still I found some sort of starlight last night. In the eyes of a woman that does not know she has it there. In the breath and movement of her body under gentle, night lighting. Some exterior design serves to mask that inner light like blanket covered hippies at a Dead concert. Still it escapes, tendrils of it shining through without warning.

In moments, at times, I felt I was lying on my back playing the stargazer. That some myriad of images was etching itself across my bloodshot eyes. Images I would never remove. Memories that will haunt me as often as they cause me to smile. Memories of some sort of hidden starlight, a glimpse of something i will not have.

Reminder

It's midnight. I guess that means it's Memorial Day. I haven't slept yet. The city is making it's music outside, not bothering me, just intriguing me. Cocktail is on the television. Tom Cruise before the scientology, Brian Brown with a career. I am reminded of the philosophy of it all.

I think back on today and smile. The smell of the grass, the sky in some sort of over-saturated brilliant blue. No matter how dirty the water in that river is, it looked beautiful in the glinting sun. Six years and she has the same effect. She makes me remember how many realities there really are in the world. She makes me remember how beautiful life is, how beautiful she is. She underplays it but it still shows, like the glinting sun.

I think back on today, with my eyes almost too heavy to keep open, and I remember walking and the sites and the sounds and the smell of her, all suntan lotion and lovely. It felt surreal, like the feeling I get from the city.

I am always falling in love with her. I am always falling in love with this city. The place that holds some sort unexplainable beauty for me. The subway ride, no matter how short, reminded me that I should be here. Seeing her walking toward me down the street floored me and I fought to stay standing.

It always feels so directed at her. When I really consider this emotion, this feeling that runs so deep through me when I think of her I know it has so much more meaning than that. It is a reminder, like this city, that life is worth living for so many reasons. That life isn't just for touching, but for diving into and wrapping around you. She reminds me that I am capable of being alive because I can see how alive she is.

Cars are blaring their horns in the city outside, and down the hall, a beautiful woman is fast asleep. I hope she knows the effect she has had on me these six years. So many times, in the midst of turmoil and hard times, she has been a reminder.

A Family Affair

All in all, I survived the weekend. I'm certainly not complaining. Staying in what I'm sure is a multi-million dollar house overlooking a harbor in Rockport, MA certainly isn't anything to complain about. There are ten of us for the weekend and we've been fighting with the weather since Friday and only amongst ourselves a little bit.

As much as I'm thrilled to be on vacation, to be away from work, I am missing a lot of things about home. Even in the sunstreaming morning hours, walking up and down Bearskin Neck I was thinking about home. I was thinking about the radio show Tuesday night and some of the people I've not seen for a while. I was thinking about people I want to see more than I have in the past.

It took us a little too long to get here. Thanks to a closed Mass. Pike. So what should have been a 2.5 hour trip took us right around 6. It rained, it poured, I'm surprised we didn't see locusts at one point. I was not pleased with our map by the end of the day.

We had amazing food, amazing drink, and some good ol' fashioned family gathering fun. Complete with cranky people and the complications of mobilizing 10 people in multiple cars to all go to one place. It worked out just fine, all in all.

So congratulations to my grandparents. 60 years is a long time. It's even longer to be married. We made it through a weekend together. And those smiles are worth a 12 hour drive.

Incidents And Accidents

For the second time in ten years, I saw you. Crossing the room to your table and catching your eye was a mystical moment behind my calm smile. As soon as you were in my sight i knew it had been too long since i'd seen you.

Then the questions started forming in my mind. As the evening passed, though, they didn't stay in order in some list. I guess the melted into a single thought that i resist attempting to explain or describe. Though you wouldn't look me in the eyes, I know you could feel me looking into yours.

I found myself wishing. I caught myself in the act of hoping for ridiculous hopes and pointless futures. I dressed up my life in a suit and hoped that appearances could be everything. And damn you for smiling, for breathing, for your energy, so addictive.

Not that it matters. Not that the universe even blinks in response to my thoughts, my feelings. I am a fleeting moment, an afterthought in the twinkle of a star. Still, in times when I can be your bodyguard again, I am suddenly elevated from afterthought. I am given the keys to some city and the power to adjust life. I a moment that could go on forever.

Thank you from the depths, the fathoms of my being. There was no accident in our meeting again. Coincidence only exists because we don't comprehend the reasons. I will not take this one for granted.

Daze

No one's around to see this
painted on my wall
I can feel my heartbeat
But it doesn't matter at all
All the things I need are here
inside and buried so deep
But without your eyes to help me
my worthless hands won't sleep

You've gotta be crazy
To think I knew
And sitting here in a smoky daze
I know it won't be you
that saves me

Pictures worth a thousand,
pictures, letters, words
But the bottle says i'm hopeless
this just isn't in my world
I need so much to show you
You need so much to see
Breaking chains makes mountains
That melt into my sea

A sorry sight in black and white
how can it grab a color
Without my rosy glasses on
it's amazing I saw some other
Endless summers taking chances
wasting time on hopeless dances
Wasting time on desperate feelings
let the devil do the dealing

Always Thinking Of You

"There is the watchman of the fire
That warms up my heart's desire.
There is the keeper of the lights
In my life's darkest nights."
---Sonja Nic Rafferty

Quite A View

It's not very often that I get to say that I can see the ocean from the house. Today, though, I can. It's only April and I'm on vacation. It won't be for long enough, but it is definitely something I needed. Just over the tree line outside the house, there is an ocean ready to take away my worries for a little while. The ferry ride over here, to my favorite place, was more therapeutic than usual. Maybe it was her presence, so sparkling and full of life no matter the circumstance.

Now, in the warmth of the sun streaming through the sky lights, I am content to write with my favorite radio station humming in the background. They seem to know what to play and when, like they're making sure my life has a good soundtrack every time i'm here. So as Jacob Dylan starts crooning through the house, all I can do is smile at the perfection of it all.

I made comment the other day that I would love to live here. I don't know if I could live here full time. I would worry that this place would lose the magic. That somehow, some of how I feel is because I am not here all the time. I would certainly like the freedom and finances to be able to come here when I feel like it. It is a goal i've had. It is, perhaps, a goal i will always have. I will fight for it to become some sort of reality, but I also know how far that reality is from my current situation.

Here I have no one to answer to about my problems. I have no one to reconcile with, no one to worry about pleasing but myself. In the kitchen making breakfast for seven people and somehow it's meditative. I cannot share or explain in, proper amounts of accuracy,
the sheer beauty of this place to me. To both my eyes and somehow to my soul, scattered and torn and still content on this island.

I guess that's why I come here. Here is where I feel the most complete. I mean, after all, it is quite a view.

Coming Around Again

The sunlight is hours away right now and still I look forward to it. I look forward to it because it means beginning again. I need this beginning. I have had so many false starts in the recent past. Places I thought were beginnings that did not turn out as I'd hoped. Life has certainly been throwing the curve balls lately.

Still, I see summer coming around again. I see Martha's Vineyard sunsets and warm rains. I can imagine the feeling of sweating in New England heat. I laugh now at the comments to come about how "I hope it gets cooler tomorrow."

Now is the time for embracing those things we've lost track of. Now is the time for rekindling and remembering. Now is the time to brush off winter's half-dazed hibernation and grab our lives firmly at the scruff of the neck and take control. Now is the time to get the tears out, the screams out, the sighs out like spring cleaning.

I want to see my own reinvention through internal eyes. I want to weep at beauty not at pain. I want to be strong enough to do the hardest thing in our lives. I will fight to be myself. Even when I am scared of who I may be, I want to embrace all I can be, not let it go wasted into oblivion.

The sunlight is hours away and the moonlight comforts me. The cool breeze rolling over my window sill is urging me to crawl under the remaining blankets and fall asleep with the night air all around me. So I will say my wishes and drift off with a smile on my face tonight. Because tonight I know that nothing was forgotten. Tonight, in my dreams, i'll be dancing.

Juggling re-Act

Round, strong, never moving
Relationships worth it, stronger, deeper
Tossed together, never easy
Adding more, we're all ok
All we have is time to love
The final ball will never come
You'll never be shakey with us to support you
Together we can handle it all
You've never dropped us, just let us bounce
Pick us up we'll always be here
We'll learn together
We'll fail together
We'll love together
And when it's too hard
And all you want to do is run...

...run to us.