I was talking to a friend, who had gone through a rough break up earlier in the year. She said something interesting to me, something I’d not considered before.

It’s good for me to hear you talk about Clay. Not just the good things, but when you tell me that you’ve had a hard time, or when you guys are frustrated with each other. That you don’t break, you both always bend.

In ten years, we’ve been through as much as two people can go through, together. One thing remains constant:

We.

Love comes unexpectedly, quietly. It comes despite your intentions to find it or to chase it away. It dispels the destructive lie of the fairytale. It is impossibly imperfect. It fucks up your vision of your charming prince on the white horse. You get your prince, but he rides forward on a nasty old mare with a ratty tail. Your prince may take your hand, gentle and strong, but his hair is all wrong and he smells like the mare he rode in on. He may gracefully dismount that horse and tell you that you are the most lovely creature he has set eyes upon, all while silently farting.

Love doesn’t replace reality. Love simply makes reality a little more bearable. Or less, depending on the day.

Love is never based on need and always based on want. That want should burn, slow and even like an ember. It will not come to you unless, somewhere in your soul, you believe you deserve it. If you do not hold that essential truth, all of the love you attract will ring false. You will wonder why the shine always wears off. Find the deserving you, nurture it. That is the one and only perfect love, because it will attract your match as dust  motes to a beam of sun.

Love is wearing your worst old sweat pants while doing chores and not caring how you look. Love is dirty dishes, squeezing toothpaste from the middle of the tube, putting the toilet paper on backwards. It is falling into bed, exhausted and filthy and safe. It is falling asleep with another person in the bed and for the first time, sleeping without fear.  Love is knowing that sex isn’t always great, isn’t always frequent, but also isn’t a chore. Love scrubs toilets, prepares meals that take hours and doing so after your partner’s snoring has kept you up all night.

It is knowing, that you aren’t always right, but that you always strive to be true. When you fail at that, you suck it up, say you’re sorry, mean it and do better next time. It is granting forgiveness before it is asked for. It is never promising to not hurt the other, because you will. Again and again, intentionally, unintentionally. But, it is trying, with your best intention and integrity to not do so. It is accepting that you too, will hurt. You will get hurt. You will drop your grudge, your shield, your weapons and grant the same forgiveness you seek.

Love is forgetting.

Forgetting old wounds, old wars and being present. It is stepping forward in each moment, it is restful. It is manic. It is all screwy. But it remains. It connects, not to your head and not to your heart. Both of those entities lie in their own way, for their own reasons. It connects with your gut, settles in tandem with your intuition.

It holds you in your weakness and leaves you breathless. It changes you and changes them and yet solidifies what is integral in each. It is sometimes underwhelming, while being utterly remarkable. It is the soul, finding what it can cling to, what gives not purpose, but reward.

Love is a reward. It is the only trophy that  is more work to maintain than it is to win.

It is fundamental, but it is never what we think it will be.

It is always more.

I have dreams of Bali, of water, of green. Of cryptic places, where I learn their mysteries. Taste those spices yet foreign to me, to be wrapped in velvet air, wet with promise. Heavy with potential.

Heady, these dreams.

I have dreams of flying, even though I always cry at take off, regardless of my destination. There is something about the gravity of this body, leaving earth. I envy the birds, who kiss the clouds. You know the ones. You used to lay in the grass in your young years, watching the cat shaped clouds pass through the blue. Interrupting an endless expanse. Being mindful of the beauty in imperfection.

Wildflowers grow against all the odds.

I feel my roots scooping down into the earth, holding me to places I’ve never been. Long arms reaching up and out, drinking in the sun I’ve hidden from, for so long. I have my swords, I’ve been a warrior and now?

I lay them down.

He is not the dad I wanted. He is not even the dad I needed and certainly not the dad I deserved. He was and is and remains selfish, angry, mean. He has lived his life in a bubble of care, not ever having to fend on his own. From mother, to military to wife, his life has been a hand which has fed him. No more blinding example of cradle to grave.

Still, he is mine.

His vitriol captures huge pieces of my childhood memory, the harshness of him a gray plane just awaiting color. My sister and brother and I were never fully aware of what would flare his anger and what words would be leveled at us in the storm of his rage. We never knew that it was his fault that he was this way, and not ours. We never knew that his depression was a deep seated genetic gift from his mother. We never knew his father.

We’ve never known our father.

Within the crevices of all of this madness, it was easy to ignore that he coached our baseball teams, braided our hair, stayed up late playing Santa Claus. As an adult, I cannot ignore the thumbprint people he used to draw on our lunchbags. I cannot forget when I found him in a darkened kitchen, sitting at the table, struggling to find the right words to eulogize his mother. I cannot forget that he let me hold him, that he listened when I said in my 14 year old wisdom “Just say what you feel”.

None of these things can be forgotten, even as tiny golden bricks in a giant wall of regret.

He is dying. He’s made this choice that 67 years in this world is enough. His body is finally giving into his heart’s demands.  He weighs 75lbs. He cannot eat or drink on his own. His big, manic presence is compressing into a tiny whimper. In all of these years of our torment, of our struggle, in our silence, I look at him now and I face a choice.

Turn off my heart, or love him.

I am so many things that he is, also. Sarcastic, artistic, addictive. His temper resides in me and bursts forth in ways that often shock me. I have always blamed him for these parts of me. Instead, now, in the hours of his unraveling, I am choosing to honor the parts of him that are in my bones. I will love him. I will love his passion and his focus and his humor. I will into him the knowledge that his daughter loves him, even though he doesn’t love himself.

I will love those pieces in myself, not because I wish to maintain them, but to honor what is him. I will change into what he never was, so that his passing has purpose. So that his suffering has meaning. So that his legacy is a positive one.

I am choosing to love him before I say goodbye.

Passion is life. Without Passion, little is created. Passion defines our paths and creates satisfaction. Without Passion, Soul is dissatisfied.

Passion is, but is not always necessarily libidinous. Although libido is tied to Passion, it is but a small portion. The most passionate Soul is not always the one that thinks of coupling, but thinks of things with Wisdom and seeks to enact them.Passion moves Soul to seek a calling and to do so with little respect to Practicality.

Passion is counterbalance to Practicality and sister to Compassion. There must be all three to have harmony in Soul.

Passion is art, is word, is motion, is the finer points of Love. Passion is fire, and water and slight breezes that move mountains and fine grains of sand.

delirious with passion

this soul, these hands

show me wisdom with

your faith

and touch me with

your fingers

your eyes

your heart

be one with this soul

Wisdom and intelligence are separate, yet enmeshed. Intelligence does not always beget Wisdom, yet Wisdom always begets intelligence.
Wisdom houses temperance, patience, reverence and perspective, Without Wisdom, the Soul does not live fulfilled, yet in chaos. Wisdom teaches Love.
Wisdom is not always peaceful, however it is always heartful and mindful. Wisdom lives in the spaces between science and Faith.

To have Wisdom is to speak with experience, to be wise is to know what experiences are appropriate to relate.

Wisdom is playful and passionate, Wisdom is solace and comfort. Wisdom gives balance and perspective to Soul.

The second of my year old series of posts- The Chart of Elements

In Spirit rests the hope of being. In hope is introspection, is searching, is light. In Spirit is the nest that safely mothers the potential we possess as people. In Spirit resides wonder, Spirit cradles creativity and holds hands with Faith.
Spirit is the mother of grace, it teaches and smiles lovingly upon her children, cupping their fragility until they are ready to fly. Spirit encompasses all things that are ready to burst forth in blinding brilliance. Spirit caresses the woman and mother, the sister and lover, the being. Spirit is sensitive and strong and inspiring.

Spirit dances around the fire of life, and directs the flame. Spirit gives wings to Soul.

A year ago, I wrote a series of posts called The Chart of Elements. I am repeating them now, for your consideration.

Back before we knew better, or perhaps when we  knew better, the essentials  to  humanity were  laid like stepping stones . Before us, at  birth, each pebble we stepped upon  represented an element  essential to our existence, as people, as community members, as beings who walked this earth.

We are still armed with inherent knowledge of these key elements, these things that make us wholly flawed, wholly beautiful, wholly terrible creatures with unlimited potential.

The first of these elements is the Soul.

What separates us from our shell is the sense of knowing. We are aware, enchanted and inextricably linked with the Soul. But how is it defined? Few words were handed down about the Soul and its essence. But they are simple, complete and unmistakable.

Soul is the connection. Soul is acknowledgment and acceptance as the self, and of others as beings with spirit and light. Soul is where all things that make life livable ,reside. Spirit, Wisdom, Passion, Compassion, Joy, Humor, Faith, Practicality, Serenity and Love all belong to the Soul.

Soul is necessary to a fulfilled life. Those who accept the song of their Soul are those who accept what it is to be human, and truly connect with life in the way that it is supposed to be lived.

I am SO SORRY.

I pride myself on answering everyone’s comments via email. So if you have commented here in the past month or so and haven’t received a reply….I just found out the reason.

FRIGGIN GMAIL SPAM FILTERS!! I missed blogroll requests, emails and comments. I am not a colossal, big headed bitch too hoity toity for her britches. I just now went through my spam folders and picked out no fewer than 350 missed emails/comments/ replies. I think I have it all cleared up now, but I am just so sorry I could cry. I will fix the missed links on the blogroll tomorrow and try to answer everyone I missed.

Ugh.

I deleted a post, and with it, as an unfortunate side effect, your wonderful comments. I’ve not done that before.
So, thank you, to an incredibly creepy person who performed an incredibly creepy search and proceeded to read page after page after page dumpster diving. That’s swell. Thanks for sullying my space you shrunken bollock having, douchebag asshat. You want to know the answer to your question? Ask me, my email is in the sidebar, technorati does not have the answers you seek.

Love. We may live our lives, follow our paths, and dance our clumsy steps and without this, we know nothing. Love is synonymous with understanding. Love may, or may not be romantic, but to be loved, is to be understood.

Love chooses beyond the wary eyes of Wisdom, the humble hands of  Practicality and the delicious meanderings of Spirit. Love is in collusion with Faith for the pure fulfillment of Soul.

However, Love cannot come purely by the hands of another, Love must be fed to Soul by the acceptance that comes with knowing your own bliss. Love does not delude itself and at the very end of all things, Love knows its path. Love will always find Soul.

For him, who is watching me grow to love myself, and while I have not always acted in a way that reflects it can know, in his Soul that I love him.