Bird Song ~

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

 

I remember reading The Bell Jar when I was 19 and the above quote jumping out of the pages and tattooing themselves to my brain. It's been awhile since I've thought of it,  and at 5:45 this Sunday morning restless and unable to fall back asleep, this quote was pulled from the archives of my mind in a vivid flash. Resonance.

I surrendered to the sleeplessness, got my bike and peddled. I rode the empty streets of West Philadelphia, through to center center city. It's been 3 months since returning to the U.S.
 

Soft chirping from the birds punctuated the cool air, and adorned the grey sky. There were no fumes from the cars, no pedestrians,  only green lights. The rubber against the pavement like white noise.  I reach the uphill road just after the bridge, staying on the third gear and peddled faster against every thought. 

The noise has been frequent the past 3 months. I've been ignoring it too often, I've realized, and gotten good at it. But I'm aware. When I ignore it, when I go against my truth, the noise only progresses.   The number of drinks on the weekend increase, the irrational & erratic choices, the discontent.  It's been three months and I continue to make sense of it while trying to find the sync. It's the repetitive questions and the same answers. 

 How long will you be back? I don't know. What will you do next? I don't know. How does it feel being back after all these years? I don't know.  Half of them don't care but I spark their curiosity. But the ones that genuinely do care, well, I hope they love and understand.

I come to a three-way intersection and choose the tree lined street. I imagined there were more birds and sweet song down that road, and I was right. I imagined the fig tree Sylvia describes, and I imagined for a moment not having to choose , but feeling content in the unknowing. And the fortitude of having the branches within reach. I would never starve. The breeze in my hair, the subtle change of color in the trees, and the solitude I let swallow me into a blissful abyss. Back to the silence where my heart is the oracle. And I felt home again,  honoring the noise until I could rest from trying to make sense. 

September 2016, USA. Photo by Redlite photos.

 

 

 

Mama Atlas, Mama Marrakech

I ran my fingers over the smooth surface of the Medina, like rose petals caressing a tombstone. I felt the filth and coveted the beauty, inheriting all within the walls. I was lost, still carrying a sweaty fistful of wilting mint in my left hand that had been handed to me to mask the putrid smelling labyrinth of the tanneries I was previously lost in. Animal skins of all sort, being shape-shifted into decadence... even luxury has its hell.

I wanted the real Marrakech,  and it took me by a beggars hand, furled and wove me into the tapestry of a harem pant pocket. I saw how privilege breeds ignorance, and lack of privilege breeds deceit. Hunger and greed everywhere among the locals and tourists, embellished by the intricacies of sublime Moroccan design.

I sit at a picnic bench in the food stalls of Jemaa El Fna . The face of a baby boy, no more than 2 with a face punctuated with bruises and scabs, still imprinted in my memory.  His little hand outstretched towards me holding a small packet of Kleenex,  his eyes dazed in the distance as his mother towers over him waiting for the 4 Dirham exchange for guilt ridden Kleenex.  The poor baby, can barely keep his eyes open from exhaustion, and his face the obvious result of being pulled around negligently as a money maker. Empathy for his mother who was clearly mentally ill, but rage for his innocence succumbed to it all.  Monkeys, pulling at the chain held by its tyrant ,  and the sight of snake charmers mythicized by the sounds of the bansuri.  Perhaps I should have let this wash over me as any tourist, however I realized that never again, can I merely be a visitor in our world,  and not take my surroundings in its entirety to heart. A sentiment birthed after the experiences I've had in the past 2 years.


And then Mama Atlas, in all her swelling dignity. I spent 5 days in the Atlas Mountains, coddling baby goats and lonesome donkeys, and processing more than just the past few days in Marrakech.  She gave me this through meditation;

Mother Atlas, 

give me the energy to grow, to thaw and let go. 

To reign in prowess with humility among humanity. 

To nurture, protect, to forgive and relinquish. 

To observe and not judge, in high humbleness, 

and to remain pronounced through all the changes.

To bloom and flow, and gracefully heed our existence like you,

 Mother Atlas. 

God Bless the Mango Tree

It's 8:30 am in Windsor, England, and I just had a Mango for breakfast for the first time since living in Asia. The nostalgia and memories associated with the scent, the taste, even the pulp between my teeth was enough to fill my eyes with surprising tears.

When I lived on Gili Meno, it was my routine to walk 2 minutes to the little makeshift shop of the village Nenek ( grandmother), and buy two fresh ginormous mangoes from her, for roughly the equivalent of 50 cents.  It was my routine so much that she often put aside 2 of her best mangoes waiting upon my early morning arrival, shooting me that sweet, puerile and toothless child-like grin.  Although we couldn't communicate via words, the mangoes became our language.

So every morning around 7 am, I'd carry my mangoes back to the jungle fortress of my front porch bungalow, strip down to my underwear and go to town . I never nailed the efficiency of the way the Asians have perfected the precise unity of knife and mango, but I suppose part of the fulfillment was eating it messily, slicing pieces of the fruit unskillfully from the pit and scraping every last bit of mango off the skin with my teeth, like a true Neanderthal:p   After my morning mango meditation, I'd rinse the orange evidence off in my salt water shower, and walk to the resort to teach my morning yoga classes.

This morning I stood in an oversized sweater, peering out the kitchen window with flooded eyes at a cascade of English cars in their morning commute as I leaned over the sink , once again scraping the remaining fruit off the skin with my teeth, juice splattering everywhere.

For a moment I was brought back to the songs my heart sang, and often cried in the little Indonesian village of Gili Meno. Every bite contained the vivid red of the hibiscus sea laden across the sandy village of Meno. It contained the laughter of my 3 year old neighbor, the fluidity of the sea turtles in their underwater dance, and the warmth and uncertainty that the yellow and purple skies after sunset beckoned every evening. 

Off.

When you're forced to slow down, the little things are suddenly more prominent.

Last week I walked along the coast of a beach in Melbourne and took a seat next to an elderly gentleman sitting on a bench. He had two dogs, one tiny one sitting on the bench next to him, and a large golden retriever sitting between his knees. Gray old canine face looking up at him as he panted contently. "So what happened?" he asked as he observed my neck brace. I explained, and then listened as he recounted the time he flipped his motorcycle in the 70's while he and his buddies were traveling the west coast of oz. As he spoke, he scratched at his arm and I noticed it started to bleed.  I intentionally took the sunscreen out of my purse and offered him some.  " This sun really is powerful," I said.   He laughed..."it's too late hun, the damage is already done."

These days my life has been sped down tenfold as I continue to heal from injury.

As my friend and I were getting out of her car yesterday she turned and looked at me and outright  said "you've changed, there's something really different about you."  Her comment didn't surprise me because I've felt it too, but have found it difficult to externalize what it is. This may be some of the most introspective days of my life .

I miss my art, incredibly. When I think about the reality that I could have been paralyzed or dead, I get emotional. I don't know where I would be without the ability to move, nor can I imagine it. I've never been much of a speaker, but I can convey the deepest and most intricate stories through my body. It's my fundamental language.  When I climb, I'd feel all my struggles dissipate as my mind and body become enveloped into a moving meditation.  And my yoga practice has been my graceful and supportive counterpart. And now that I'm on a hiatus from my high's , my lows are more prevalent. Maybe I had been using this too much in the form of escapism, and losing the balance. I still believe in a way, this accident has happened to get my attention and slow me down for once.

Life continues on, but I suppose any trauma we face has the inevitable of changing us. I was given a dose of comfort recently when I attended the weekly Melbourne acro jam, when I had a discussion with a woman who knew about my accident and experienced a similar injury. She described how it took a lot of time for her to feel like herself again, and the changes she also underwent. Naturally when life seems to continue on around us when we're in a vulnerable state we cannot control , I think a feeling of isolation is inevitable. My thinking patterns, my body, my existence feels completely out of sync, and no one will ever quite understand.

I had X-rays taken last week, and my dear body has been one hell of a warrior for me. I've gotten permission to begin to take off the neck brace and even engage in a very gentle yoga practice as I start to rehabilitate my neck on my own, three weeks earlier than expected.  The task of looking left , right, up or down is excruciating since my neck has been immobile for so long. A few days ago after moving my neck around a bit and doing several modified sun salutations, my neck was feeling really good. But the next morning I woke up in agony and extreme discomfort all day. Another reminder, that I need to abide in time and patience.



Random Musings I want to remember 2/9/16.