Were I a tree I would sink my roots
Deep down into the core of your heart
And there I would find my growth

My knotted branches are entwined in your veins
And to let go would be to the cutting of my own core

To the exposure of the green blood beneath my bark
Jealous and alive

Timber!

Each night my dad takes up an old and un tuned guitar, props it on his knee and slowly strums on the sagging strings. My father is a natural musician with a voice that is warm and comfortable and a talent for stringing together sentences into silky streams of song lyrics. In short, he was born with a gift and though he has yet to master the guitar, slowly but surely he is realizing that gift through a persistent pursual of the instrument.

For the past few weeks I have been floating through my own life, feeling more an observer than an active participant. I wonder what the deal is. I feel displaced, uprooted and unsure and I find myself looking around for resolution and some sort of absolution.

The older I get, the more I come to realize that this sort of thing happens from time to time. In the continual ebb and flow of existence there is natural variation, and along with it, a tendency to allow ones understanding for oneself and others to wane, or expand.

At present, I am watching myself operate as the epitome of the inconsistent and superfluous female, relentlessly worrying about everyone around me, apologizing for everything, and furrowing my brow at each new thought that floats into my mind. It’s quite frustrating and despite the fact that I understand my current state as transitory and temporary, I am confused and tired by the added effort it has required.

You may be wondering how dad and his guitar tie in here. My father is a person who has dealt with considerable emotional and situational fluxuation in his life. Such has not been easy but has certainly left him with lessons learned and stories to tell. When I watch him take up that guitar and strum away, his importunate approach serves as a solution to life’s uncertainty. Though the path be unclear and its destination unknown, put one foot in front of the other and, irrespective of whatever else may be going on or how poorly you employ it, pick up that guitar, and keep strumming away -

you might just wake up one day and know how to play.

The Court and the Spark~

My mom says that there is something in the female brain that chemically affixes itself to a man; a natural means of preserving the will to procreate. I curse this. I also wonder, why is it that this hormonal surge crops up selectively (as if the field wasn’t narrow enough to begin with) and refuses to dissipate without significant struggle.

Other people seem to fall in love and hop into relationships at the drop of a hat. I am not such a person and find that whenever I have tricked myself into thinking that I can do such a thing, I inevitably come to my senses and hurt another person in the process. Maybe my independent nature is to blame and I am destined to live a single and fabulous life littered with amazing and short-lived love affaires that sexually satisfy and do little else. Or perhaps I refuse to settle for anything but Spark- the electric connection forged by locking eyes with another; the feeling incited by the company of a person whose presence causes time to slip away and thoughts to be set on fire.

I find magic in myself on a regular basis and there is no doubt that to find it in the eyes of another has been amazing in the past and will be once again should a willing partner present himself... so long as it is a wait full of my independent enchantment. But I do hope that I am woman enough to trust that it will come and face it when I find it. Funny how something so real can be so complicatedly frightening all at once.

For now, I guess I’ll settle for the love affaires and await the Spark.


Addendum:

...All of this thinking on the nature of loving, courting and sparking brings to mind a fabulous piece of writing by a poet after my own heart:

O Tell Me the Truth About Love

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic onThe Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned inAccounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled onThe backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air. I
don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races, or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?

Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

~W.H. Auden

Something in the eyes of an old friend once turncoat
On the road to forgiven,
Makes my memory twitch as it traces the lines of the past,
Padding over patterned pathways of pain,
To end up in the now.

If this moment is the only one we have,
What purpose does our memory serve?

If love is forgiveness,
If we are love,
Better settle into the security of this moment
And abandon times gone by-

Instant is the only now we can really know.

New York City, an urban sprawl of infinite indulgences and seemingly unlimited income to throw at them.

Nowhere, is this excessiveness more apparent than within the realm of the various spa and beauty services, which are unabatedly offered on every street corner in every neighborhood. Indeed, you need not walk more than a block to find an available nail salon jam packed with women (and some men) from every imaginable walk of life, be they flipping through last month’s Vogue or down on hands and knees vigorously rubbing away other people’s dry skin.

Maybe it’s because of the stress that the city inevitably incurs, but for some reason, the spa has a magnetic draw for us Manhattan mavens. You can imagine my unmitigated glee, therefore, upon discovering a spa-week-esque special offering fifty-nine dollar spa treatments at select salons for one week only. Overtaken by glee, and acting like any wry New York woman, I pounced, making an appointment post haste. What I failed to remember however, was another golden rule of city living; namely, you get what you pay for. Even though for my fifty-nine dollars (well, actually, sixty one fifty with tax) I got an exfoliating body wrap, manicure and mini facial, the circumstances proved to be less than ideal.

My roommate and I arrived at the salon and were ushered into a chaotic world of Russian speaking women, all of whom were barking at one another over a intricate series of intercoms.

As I received my manicure, I found myself alternating between staring out the window and casually glancing at the hands of my own manicurist, which were harboring some unfortunate looking substances beneath the nail. I had noticed her eating a knish right before being assigned to my nails and I deduced that the aforementioned food had remained lodged beneath her nails.

My manicure turned out sub par which is somewhat expected, so I ventured towards my body wrap optimistically, never having received such treatment before. In a cubicle sized room I stripped naked, put on disposable underwear and awaited treatment. When Gladys, a sixty something, red haired, tracksuit clad woman came in, addressing me “skinny baby”, I smiled encouragingly. Alas my happiness soon turned to certain dismay as Gladys slathered me all over with scalding hot brown goop, refuting my innocent pleas against the burning sensation it incurred. Lucky for me, the pain of treatment didn’t last too long for as soon as she finished, BAM, down goes the entire massage table with a goop slathered, naked me on top of it.

Once the table was reinstated (Gladys had to call for reinforcements while I stood there, awkward and uncovered) she proceeded with my “facial” which was basically her telling me that I had very dry skin whilst rubbing aloe vera on my face in circular motions.

To make the rest of a long story short, I ran from the place, sixty one dollars poorer and still covered in the reminisces of my body wrap but wiser one more essential New York City rule of thumb: for as fancy and indulgent as the city can be, when it’s bad, it is extremely so…beware the “spa special”

Considering the Voices of a Nation...

I just discovered the coolest thing. Surfing around checking out interesting news stories on the national public radio website, I happened upon a sidebar titled “Voices of NPR”, complete with detailed biographies of each and every NPR host and more importantly, their photographs. I am happy to report that Robert Siegel looks just as he should, learned and accomplished with a twinkle of humor lurking somewhere behind scholarly glasses and suit.

I am very satisfied. How often have I wondered who housed the familiar, familial voices of my childhood. Indeed, I grew up listening to my local NPR station, from “ Morning Edition” on the way to bus each morning, to “All Things Considered” playing in the kitchen as my parents prepared dinner in the evening. NPR has changed very little over the twenty years I’ve been listening to it for, and that is probably the primary reason that I love it so. The voices of the radio’s most noted hosts are also voices of my past that can still be found in my present…and such is a rare and happy occurrence.

In the Eyes of Equus~

There is something in the eye of a horse. The soft penetrating stare of an animal whose eye falls at a level height with your own. I cannot say why I place such a degree of importance upon establishing an eye to eye relationship with a horse, be it my own or another equine friend whose care I have been charged with, but I make a point of meeting eyes until the stare can be held, unbroken, for some time.
Ham and I spend much of our time looking at one another. Our mutual gaze is not starry eyed or glossed over, but is one between equals.
In the eye of my horse, I can see my own reflection; I fit with perfect ease into the frame of his deep brown pupil. It is the only mirror that I can look into and know myself inside and out. I wonder if Ham feels the same way. I am quite sure his emotions do not categorize themselves with such complexity, but I do know, somewhere…in my heart I suppose, that he derives comfort from my stare, and through it, understands the deepest contents of my heart.
Up until this point in my life, I have had difficulty meeting other people’s eyes. It oddity of which I am aware but unable to shake. It is as if, when my eyes are locked with another person’s, I am vulnerable, a position which is admittedly uncomfortable for me. I learned at a young age that people are oftentimes not whom they initially appear to be, a fact which disappoints me, disappointment being a feeling that I will take great strides to avoid. To allow another is see into my eyes, is to expose my vulnerability, and risk feeling let down and hurt.
Perhaps I truly know that I love someone only when I can hold their gaze and think nothing of it. There are some with whom this is a reality, my best friends and my parents. Yet it remains to be true that even with them, I am aware of the challenge that meeting eyes presents me with to varying degrees in regards to anyone, be they family or stranger, save for one. Ham.
There is no hesitance in the eyes of my horse and I meet them with all my heart. Perhaps then, it is the horse who is the embodiment of the purest form love, fee of judgement, and trustworthy. Perhaps I knew that all along. Perhaps that is all the unbound eye contact I really need.

It’s raining outside, and droplets pelt against the window panes of my father’s house in bullet like spattering splats that make me shiver with gratitude for my position at the kitchen table. I am sitting here, hair down and sweatpants on, scalding hot water bottle leaning up against my belly. Its heat is buffered by my bulky sweatshirt, which keeps me just warm enough to make the absence of a fully functional oil burner a tolerable situation. Gusts of wind beating at the house’s exterior, an introspective state of mind, dog snoring on the sofa, and the weight of sleep bearing down upon my eyelids…I cannot think of a more beautiful way to ring in 2007…and I have a feeling, this year will be one for the books.