I wanted to write this post about intentions but I got stuck, lost the thread, and got bored.
So instead, I will write something similar but different.
I found a book called Design your Life that I had bought a long time ago. In it, there is an exercise where you make a metaphor for your life currently and a metaphor for how you would want it to be in the future. I had written that I thought my life currently was an elevator but I was in the wrong building. And my life of the future would be like the ocean, deep and thoughtful; full of wonder and mystery. I was surprised at how accurate it is; how I knew so long ago what I wanted.
What is funny about that is that I found the ocean, every day, every morning, in my writing, in my painting, in my son.
But I am still in that elevator in the wrong building.
Not quite how I thought that would be but it never is. Time and time, again, I have wanted things and, many times, they’ve happened but never in the way I imagined.
So the title of this post, moving forward. I want to get off the elevator and get out of the building. So I think I’m going to start visiting the ocean more often.
The flow of life is interesting and if we follow the river, amazing discoveries reveal themselves. Things shifted a bit over the past month and a half. I have dived into exploring watercolor and oil pastels. It was something that has nudged me for a while, for several years, in fact. I finally started and it has been an avalanche of creativity. When I first started writing a few months, really writing, the same thing happened. I had an overwhelming outpouring of words that came out in poetry. And then it settled. The same thing seems to be happening now but with a different medium.
So, I’ll follow this riverine path to see where it goes.
As always, take what works and leave the rest.
Imagine this The Shadows ripple on the floor in shades of grey The Turkey Vulture sits high a top a cell tower, stark, against a somber sky Mushrooms appear at the entrance of a trail
But maybe there are no words Maybe there are no words that capture the meaning and depth
And you imagine and are not struck
Because you must look and see and be struck
But what is it What is it?
There are no words for this
Because it speaks to you in experience Because it is the language of the planets and the stars Because it is the whisper, telling you, remember
I bought a beautiful gladiolus from the farmer’s market. It had orange sorbet petals that made my heart sing. As the week went on, I watched new buds birth into more orange sorbet while the older ones faded
Several poems, both spoken and written, a story, and an illustration
Follow the journey as displayed, jump around, or start at the end and work backwards. As always, pick what works and leave the rest.
A poem: Untitled
My emotions pass through me like a river I try to capture them To record this experience But they are fish slipping through my grasp If only I had just done that If only I had just done this Regret is a nagging friend Whispering in my ear Reminding me of all of the things I’ve done wrong And all the time that has passed I don’t have to feel this way, I tell myself But I do anyway
The guilt travels up and down the center of my torso At moments releasing but mostly stays A consistent undercurrent of sick and pressure I know you said that I don’t have to do anything But I feel an obligation to respond And so the energy is held there In suspension In waiting To send my response To receive the onslaught
Did you know that animals shake to release trauma? The mechanism moves energy so it doesn’t get stuck and leave a residue of the memory But I can’t shake this off It’s a hook in my stomach and the chain is
Clank
Clank
Clank
My stomach is in a compactor machine And it is Slowly Slowly Crushing my insides I shake my body And again And again And again And again And Again Again Again Again Again Again
Is this how it is done? Will this shaking shake out the memories my body plays over and over?
A poem: Untitled
This pain is a prison I’m stabbed in the chest The knife drags down my sternum and twists I am engulfed I can’t think about anything else I can’t do anything else And at the same time pulled to do something
For a time, I forget and I am free I’m in the moment and light as air
But then it peaks through It all comes flooding back And the knife returns I am frozen Caught between not wanting to deal with it And wanting to just get it over with Guilt is a burden A burden passed from mother to child who becomes a mother But I will not carry that torch I am the end of dysfunction My child will not carry these wounds
A meditation: The Storm
The chaos swirls around me I can’t see The rain is so thick it is as if a wall is in front of my face I blink to clear the water from my eyes The wind howls My ears strain I am in a vortex I am blind and deaf In this moment, it feels like forever In this moment, I am lost and I cannot see the clearing But the storm will end It always does Hold onto that The storm will end Use it as an anchor The storm will end Let the chaos swirl The storm will end
A visual meditation: Sensations
A Story The web of wounds
I once did a heart center meditation It was something I had not done before When the narrator guided me to bring my attention to my heart, I flinched It was like touching a wound, raw and infected My skin crawled and I couldn’t continue A few weeks later, I had a sonogram done of my heart And when the technician pressed the wand over my chest, the same sensation rose. The procedure lasted almost 10 minutes and the whole time, I braced myself Had to hold myself back To not push her hand away
To not yell at her “Don’t touch me!”
To not retreat To not scurry to the corner of the table and curl myself up like an abused dog
What is this invisible wound, I wondered? What is this hurt? My hurting heart? Is it from my childhood? From my mother? From my father? From my childhood friends?
But all childhood friends are ruthless and unkind And mothers and fathers can also be hurtful
They all have their own wounds How sad that we carry these wounds and then inflict damage on our own kind to wound them Who then do the same to others
A web of wounds, really
That is what our society has become Our society is built on a web of wounds We hurt – deep from wound inflicted on us from childhood
From parents and siblings
friends
aunts
uncles
grandparents
The wounds are imprinted in our skin and we carry them heavy Is this why we feel so tired?
And we do our own damage On our parents
Siblings
Friends
Children
And so we are connected by these wounds Imprisoned by those who hurt us or did us wrong And we replay the narrative and get trapped To wound or be wounded again
An illustration + observation: The Tree
Today, I saw a tree that had dipped its trunk into the water The day was overcast Grey cotton balls stretched across the sky It was humid but the drops of rain that hit my skin were cold I have a love/hate relationship with those droplets of rain The water was a relief against the heat but the acute sensation was jarring to my nervous system I had come to the water’s edge when I saw the tree It was a single trunk that had dipped itself in to take a drink from the water Or maybe it was trying to cool off The curve of the branches juxtaposed the curve of the water’s ripples How far down did it go, I wondered? I didn’t know I wondered if it touched the bottom And what did it see I’m sure the world was different from the world it lived in And maybe that’s why it went in It wanted to see It wanted to experience something different And so it decided to grow that way It took its time to reach its destination And now it’s there I wonder if it has any regrets.
Nicole Vitale 