Memory and Surrender (a long one)

Why resist remembering? For fear memory will leak into longing, maybe even craving? But resistance amplifies. I'm not satisfied with that as a strategy. Besides, memory and surrender aren't necessarily contrary. I'm determined there's a way to honor our memory without taking back the hard won release. So I put on the forbidden album, throw in a load of laundry and listen to Akron Family in the sunshine of my patio, recording thoughts of you, and of me.

It seems as long as I don't indulge in aversion, my heart stays relatively clear of craving. That's where not having a story comes in handy. If I indulge "my side," the nature of things will balance it out. Just the nature of yin/yang. No punishment, no judgement: just nothing exists in isolation, that's all. Kind of comforting actually. Nobody ever gets rejected by nature, though mountains may erupt and the sea might overwhelm the land. Could be interpreted as cause and effect, but that feels too linear. It's more just the way things move. And I'm glad for my moment of aversion because it allowed me to see the craving, which turned around and matched it, in an entirely new light. I wasn't slipping. I was natural. And that very equanimity melted the craving, or at least let it pass through without a spiral of anxiety and self-condemnation.

I'm trying to give up self-condemnation for Lent. It requires vigilant wisdom of perspective nourished by something beyond me. So my prayer to that expanse of mysterious resource is to open daily to the thoughts, beliefs and feelings instrinsic to loving myself deeply. To really be with me. Staying power. The root ball. Breath. Green. Sap moving and flowing amidst knots & knarls & lopped off branches and the rest that axes & storms & stagnation bring. The root keeps breathing, drawing from the heavens and like a billows, blowing into the molten core of the earth. Never holding it in. The wound has to breathe, too. I am not my wound. It just adds a small sweetness of character to the length & breadth of trunk & sunlit greenery & mossy root. I need only remember this and let the aliveness and greenness of breath surge through me. To unravel the rings of time until I can't remember my name. The unamable at once wounded and healed and none of it.

So what of memories? Forgetting him would mean forgetting my life. I'm here now. Yes. I'm also the 10,000 things I have been and will be. So then.

Playing "Festival in the Desert" over and over again. A phase during which he happened to show up on my doorstep night after night. He took "vigilance" seriously. At that time, I was so clear in my solitude, as if I'd steam-bathed my soul for a year and evaporated so much uselessness. It was almost dry, glass-like. And he greeted my post-windex soul with the kind of ebulient gratitude that only comes just after exiting hell and finding your soul miraculously intact. And his flesh was still molten, fluid. Sometimes I wondered if residual poppy pollen still flushed his blood. And sometimes I felt within me the strength and repose of a diamond. I felt it refracting inside me as he wrapped his big arms around me on the porch and my blue light met his molten core. And I felt the privelege of being welcomed there, into his huge gratitude. And as hardness turned to light, we cut straight to our preciousness and languished there, embraced. I'll never forget.

And it was right that later - with more vulnerability - I felt my glass, and how it might shatter, and how the shards would sparkle, too. And it was right - with more humanness - that the gratitude turn to enjoy the delicate feast. We weren't perfect in the beginning and we're not perfect in the end, but it was perfect. All of it. The phone conversations from Oregon or my delight when I saw him again. Or the gourmet meals in his trailer. Or standing in the doorway naked, everything finally on my face. Or together, looking into Julie's eyes on her wedding day. Or his children. Or another bullshit night in the city. Or clicking our heals down the alleyway. Or screaming into the roaring train. Or so many moments when Truth showed up right in our midst.

Because that was the meat of it. Where we sank in our teeth and drank in the honesty as if it were the blood of God. An ineffable experience. Our chemistry was all flesh and divinity. The workings of an outer planet turning in our gut. More gravity even than all the things we never got to do together. All the things I imagined he might do with someone else while he was forgetting me later. More gravity than that. First I attached my redemption to his, then claimed sacred separateness instead. Enough distance to witness his depths. Without control. Without attachment to outcome. But with every intention to love truly. These weren't easy lessons and there were many. And they took time. And so the unity of us bore witness to incredible growth and deep-rooted loving.

It was all right. The late nights talking. How safe he felt inside me. The gut-craving, self-loving split when we parted on bad terms. The summer we found discipline and surrender. The fall we were graced back together again. Cuddling all night on the hood of the Nissan. Trepidation. Giving everything. Building something in tandem. Alchemy in the kitchen. Forgiveness. Satisfaction. Hope. Feather-faces. Bathroom sinks. Mirrors. Not walking away again and again. Staying power. And eventually, the brokenness that came between us. The glass that turned to sand. And I won't say it was all fear and pride. I don't know what it was. The Fate we thought was ours slipped through outstreched fingers. So soft beneath my knees as I knelt before a Greater Hand. Bowed to the mystery between us, the tragedy of our parting, and the grace that embraced us both as we learned to release. Into the sea. The salt. The tears. The waves of grief and gratitude and unknowing. Setting sail some deep integrity, the gravity of a neutral charge. Cutting waters. First moved, then moving. A billowing breath through blood all the way to my molten core. And so again the sharp edges turn to light and I will always be embraced by our loving. And I will never be alone.