On Women and Chemistry

Since getting my IUD, I'm experiencing intense hormonal changes for the first time in years. I'm having nights where I don't sleep at all, or days where I can't express my sudden, extreme anger or overwhelming loneliness in words. It's strange and unsettling. Overall, though, I'm trying to recognize it as a temporary change in my body and embrace it as a new way of living.

Today I crave love. Not romantic love or movie love, but the deep, earthy swaying love of mothers and babies, or the faithful and their God. The quiet understanding of long-time friends. No complications, no expectations.

For a long time I've been missing the feeling of the Unitarian conferences I frequented as a teenager. I miss the discussions and rituals and cooking, but most of all I miss the nights. I still dream about the nights. A sea of strangers entwined, breathing as one-- an ocean of sleeping bags and limbs heavy with the scent of sleep. You'd wake up halfway through the night with someone's head resting on your stomach, or cradling another person's foot. You'd move in and out of consciousness to the sensation of someone --you didn't even care whom-- stroking your hair. A crowd as a single unit. Kinship between strangers.

Especially now, it's occurred to me that I need to keep myself firmly in the company of women for the next few days. Women seem to possess a capability to cloak themselves and each other in this same sort of kinship without question or hesitation. The instinct leaps up to band together for survival. I am usually more comfortable in the company of men; the blunt, frank nature of them appeals to my more impatient side.

But now, with my hormones all out of whack, I want nothing more than to retreat into the world of mothers and daughters and sisters and friends, and talk, and not talk, and glut on the enormity of that love. I want to wrap my arms around someone soft and cry, and then sleep forever.

Desire

If you were to crush it between your teeth
it would be astringent, green on the tongue
like chewing rose petals--
something you can't not do; they smell
so sweet. Unpleasant
and unanticipated, the taste would roll
through your mouth and you'd savor that disgust,
the scent moving in your blood,
the anger, the heat,
the nausea, the longing so great it pounds
in your sinuses and makes your fingernails ache.
You'll never spit it out.

Notes from the Universe

For a long time now I've been receiving "Notes from the Universe" in my email inbox each morning. They're little (somewhat) personalized messages meant to give your day a boost, and most of them are funny and sweet. Every now and again, though, I'll find one that strikes me particularly profound, even if it's meant to be whimsical. Like today's:

To clarify, Sarah, the primary roles of LOVE are not to heal, fix, or mend. Not to soothe, cure, or ease. Not even to refresh, rejuvenate, or restore. Hardly.

The primary roles of LOVE, Sarah, are to "Yahoo!" "Yeehaa!" and "Whoohooo!"

Get your love on,
The Universe

You were born to love, Sarah, no matter the cost, no matter what someone else said, and no matter how the past once played out.

Ooh, I do like that last part. Something I should repeat to myself on a regular basis, yeah?

Rehearsal

Today I woke early
And stood with coffee at the kitchen window
To watch a single girl, hair wild
With wind and rain
Hurrying along with a violin bow tucked
Securely under one arm.

I thought, where is she going
That requires such rush, such
Determined strides through the wet,
Frown lines creasing her forehead
And drops of water filling the gaps
With no violin?

Perhaps the bow was forgotten, and,
Irritated, she carries it for a friend.
Her husband the musician, who always leaves behind
His keys, his glasses, the sheet music.
Perhaps she is thinking, "This is the last time
I will tell him. This is the last time."

Perhaps there is a rehearsal
And she is late-- five, ten minutes.
The other musicians will be waiting:
The reed without the saxophone,
The pick without the guitar,
The bell without the horn.

I will arrive tardy by an hour or more,
coming in on the damp air.
I will bring my pen
And a single piano key
And we will play the sound of clouds
Moving off toward the coast.

On Shrubs and Baking Ingredients

We seem to have skipped over spring entirely and entered an early summer. My weekend in Bend's high desert got up to 102, and all that good dry air made me feel as though I could shoot sparks from my fingers, even if the elevation wore me out. Back in Portland I spent last night stretched to my full length, naked, on top of the sheets with a fan pointed at me, and still I felt as though someone had replaced my blood with a vat of warm molasses.

There's something to be said about the sudden burst of sunlight, though; I've caught other people running their hands lovingly through close-cropped hedges, enjoying the tingle of new growth on their fingers. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

This is a time for things to run full circle. For young things to develop and change, and for old things to sigh and settle.

I like that I'm one of the young things again. I feel like I'm reaching a level of peace within myself that I haven't felt before. I'm happy where I am, and it's strange to discover that I'd forgotten how that felt.

Whooooo-hoooooo.

Prologue: In Which the Writer is Introduced

I've spent years writing near-daily posts for my livejournal only to realize that I've ceased to write for the sake of writing. And that I'm at a point where people expect me to feel a certain way all the time, to mask my emotions in consideration of everyone's comfort. I've even been asked outright to delete posts or re-write certain passages. Before long, I stopped writing entirely, even down to my poetry; the most people ever got from me was a paragraph in an email. It hurts. It's not me. I never learned to bottle or hide my emotions until recently, and I feel like I learned it out of necessity to keep certain people around me.

So this is a journal by me, for me. Others may enjoy it as they will, but I will not let it become a simple communication tool or a place to collect friends. I need to get all of my thoughts down for my own sake. It is a place for personal reflection, for poetry, for hope.

I deserve to give myself this.