hurricanes with two eyes can see where they're going

Eulogy for the thing I used to be

That I didn't realize I was dragging around like a kid with their favorite blankie
or 'Unh - uh' as my youngest cousin used to call hers
This thing that I used to get hired for - I could see the light in various employers eyes
As I roared edicts and froze entire oceans of men with the sharpness of my words

The landscape has changed.
Me and my fellow giants huddle together at bars, able to see each other like no one else
can, there are fewer and fewer people who remember how powerful we were
so I get asked dumb questions about my competence from people far less capable then I

I've spent so long proving to the world and myself that I was strong enough,
That I'd fought hard enough to deserve the respect no one would give me
And when I encounter situations where people assume I know what I'm doing,
I almost feel robbed of the righteous anger that used to crackle the air around me

No one can conceive of how hard some of us work, have worked
But in this new landscape that doesn't seem to matter
And my story about how hard I am doesn't fit with my rapidly softening hands and body
and now I am wracked with the memory of the strength that used to course through me

But now I have nothing to be proud of conquering,
myself or others, circumstances, institutions, ways of thinking
Not having to pry my sense of self and worth out of them all
isn't as freeing as I thought it would be

Habits of prying and proving, the language I formed for defending myself from monsters
just rasps at the soft skin of the people that have filled the void where giants used to be
and even I am tired of talking about the shit I went through to stand here
Its clearly time for a new pair of glasses, but why can't I seem to let these old things go?

Watching the holidaze is always illuminating
it strikes me how luxurious it can be to have such a black and white view of everything
no familial bonds makes it easy to not get caught in the aching webs of love and loyalty
shame expectation tenderness frustration longing layered into a rich tapestry

Like Umami, that perfect balance of salty sweet bitter sour
that completes a dish, makes it multidimensional, whole
No one would say I lack dimension, but I am a direct descendant of smoke and mirrors
Learning to be seen at all was like learning a new language

And some things will never quite translate directly
especially if I can't let myself be immersed in muddy murky relationships
to find the contrast to my briny demeanor, the sharp iron taste from tending metal
and flame, something to bring out the subtle chamomile quality underneath it all

I've used my mother's toxic coping mechanisms to their highest capacity
I absolve her of monster status, release her from the labyrinth of my ideas
of self, but how do I hang up my cowboy hat now that the frontier has been settled
how do I stop obsessively searching for new frontiers to conquer

Who am I without the skin suit of all the things I used to be?
A tattoo artist said to me that images become clear just as we cease to need them
anymore, a friend told me recently that I shouldn't force the elusive things I contain to express themselves, but just keep making space for them to arise, on their own time

That doesn't mean I don't miss the powerful things I have been, or the lessons I learned
about what I was capable of along the way, I doesn't mean I'm not proud of the fierce angry
little girl I used to be, and I don't know what to be proud of in this new landscape
and I wrote a Eulogy to try to help let that part of myself live in the past

without me.

Hearing the Cello

Last night I had a dream I only remember small pieces of. There were grounded stingrays being whipped around by the wind and there wasn't much water for me to submerge them into. According to TheCuriousDreamer.com a stingray represents Fluidity of movement, agility, and the ability to lay low and camouflage oneself (especially emotionally). As I run into rough edges at work, I wonder about how I may be finding myself in situations where there isn't enough water for me to express my fluid potential, I don't even know what kind of environment might make such a choice possible.

we all move and make choices in response to the stimulus of our environments.

Something I have considered one of my greatest strengths is my capacity to orient so deeply around the people who can teach me the most in any situation, that I can anticipate their needs or next moves almost before it escapes their lips. I pay such fierce attention to preferences and body patterns that I can find a rhythm and fast forward my learning, but I have also continued throughout my life to run into a deep confusion of relationships from people I have needed, even momentarily.

I find myself staring that question in the face again, but I can't keep claiming innocence.

It strikes me now that I have very much embraced the role of the needle, or the hands guiding the warp and weft of the projects I have worked on at a massive scale. It is necessarily a tapestry of all of our efforts to manifest it, and the flavor and style of my impact has been relegated to sculpting the experience from above, the only evidence of my work lives in the physical expressions of the crews I run. The shape and structure of the tapestry, of all of the hands who did the manifesting remain, and I am a ghost, too busy piercing the space with other people's threads to have woven in my own. Performing the part of the invisible plane, the axis. Guiding everything through its intimate relationship to myself. I have spent years writing about feeling like a ghost, not tied to history, about seeking proof of my existence through other people's responses to me, and I see that same pattern in the tapestry of the piece I just finished constructing.

My mother and I were one symbiotic organism when I was a child. I was logic and follow through, she was desire and destination maker. Our roles were reversed, I learned there was no truth to hierarchy, no rules actually existed. I have always been the needle. The Compass. Guiding hands. A container, rather than something contained.

But I am starting to suspect that not having a clear through line, a thread of my own selfness is also a choice I am making - to be the teller of the story rather than the character inside of it. To be infinitely responsive/acquiescent to others around me, so I can wear the right mask at the right moments. Shaping the world so I can control how I am shaped by it. My desire to feel myself through contact with others is kind of like a weird nervous tic, betraying something I feel helpless to control, a way of getting close to the feeling of being inside of my own story, so I can feel its heat from a safe distance.

As profound a skill as my awareness often is, I think it is time to consider how those habits might be manifesting a particular kind of reality that automatically keeps other possibilities languishing in the shadows.

"the problem with war is the victor. he has proven that war and violence do pay. Who will then teach him a lesson? And how?"