2 posts tagged “goapele”
My mom was in this weekend, to prepare for settlement on her house (which happens today). She has keys, she has an address, and this afternoon she will have a home in Texas.
I am over it for the most part. I've gotten over the feeling of being swallowed whole. I've accepted that they are on their way. I've also accepted that there are things in life that you may not think you want, but apparently need to experience for reasons you won't understand a minute before you are supposed to. The anguish comes in fighting the tide. Most of all I've learned that it can never be all about you. There are lessons that time provides, we just despise having to have the patience to experience them.
While we were in the house, I went through each room by myself, touching the walls, getting a sense for the room. And this is going to sound odd but, I went into the bathroom, closed the door and shut off the lights for a few moments. It's just something I do before I move into new space, to get a feel for it's history. I don't make a production of it, I try to go unnoticed, but the realtor caught me to my embarrassment and pulled me aside later.
"What do you think of the house?"
I told her I liked it for them. The house had good energy, I could tell that a kind person lived here. An older person, who lived by herself and had passed away not long ago. The realtor looked at me and she says, "How did you know that?"
I told her I could feel it. That she was a very kind woman, she had a peaceful happy life. There was a calm in the place, a quiet serenity that was very welcoming. The realtor then goes, "what were you doing in the bathroom?"
I looked at her and we both chuckled. I've known her since I moved into my own place a ways back. We've had surface level understanding, chatty conversations about politics and living in Austin. Nothing much deeper. I didn't answer her directly and finally she goes, "you're pyschic."
I laughed. I think, in fact, I might have snorted. That word carries with it immediate baggage. Sort of like, divorced, or handicapped or monster. There are all sorts of predisposed notions that are handed over once any word in this group is uttered, and I don't like predisposed notions. I replied that I was intuitive, yes. That I use my perception many times to tell me what my eyes or the "edited" story may not. I use it to read between the lines. To fill in the blanks. I don't have any ability to forecast the weather or predict winning lottery numbers...but I can sense what's happening in a space, and I can pick up more from people then just what tumbles from their lips. I see paths, sometimes that make no sense at all...until they happen. Don't we all have this capability to some degree? How much we benefit from it largely depends on how much we get in our own way of accessing it. So, does that make me crazy? *cues Gnarls Barkley*
When we were driving back from Cedar Park and furniture stores, I had two instances where I was beseiged by a butterfly. One fluttered around me curiously in front of IHOP, dancing near my face before moving on after about ten seconds. The second one, later in the afternoon, hitched a ride to my windshield and drove with me for about a quarter of a mile. Sometimes I have a series of things that seem to occur with a message attached. I hear things. I observe things. Things are suggested silently to me, in a variety of ways. I don't know what any of that means...
but I accept that, too.
The hardest part in all of this, this acceptance of things...is knowing what you know, having no proof or explanation or logical reasons mapped out to justify a bit of it. Sitting on a nest of things, wondering how they will hatch and hoping no one comes by to ask you what the fuck you think you're doing. Or better still, resisting the urge to tamper with life in order orchestrate what you want in lieu of trusting that somethings truly are just not in your hands to control.
Sometimes when you think you're lost, and nothing is happening as you planned it...you have to acknowledge that you might be steering just a little bit too hard. Sometimes you have to drift, and trust...and know there is a sense to every little thing happening. Every little thing. And it can be good, if you allow it.
I’m goin’ higher and higher
I ain’t gonna sleep
Some times you just have to let it go (Let it go, let it go)
Leaving all my fears to burn down
Push them away so I can move on"
- Goapele
First time I heard this song, I was driving in my truck, a snowy winter day in Suburban Philadelphia, on my way to work. I was about a month away from my surgery date, and just a mess of different emotions. I can see it...feel it as if it was just an hour ago. The surgery was going to change my life. Some people give birth to 8 lb 7 oz infants. I was preparing to give birth to a fibroid tumor of the same size. I had a basketball in my abdomen. And I had no choice but to deliver it. The surgery meant so many things to me. It meant a major procedure, the first time alien metal objects would enter my body. It meant discovering if I would be left intact enough to bear a child, as opposed to a non-cancerous growth of the same size. It meant reevaluating my future with him. Could I bear his child? Would he ever want me to? Would my time run out before he decides?
I look back on that day and the moment this track began to play, because it was that eerie to me. As soon as I heard that 4th line of that verse, my eyes filled and spilled over liquid anxiety. Down my cheeks, leaving dark chocolate drops on my heavy winter coat. It was hopeful, but mournful, innocent but eerily wise. It reminded me that the hardest thing I would ever have to do, would be the very thing I needed to do. For my own survival, and happiness. I would have to let go.
I am a bleeding orange fire in a liquid sky.
I've always struggled with that. Acquiesing to the universe, and letting my God steer me with the faith that I have all I need to weather each storm. Unwilling to have a course move in any direction but the one I'm most comfortable with. I was trapped in an impudent belief that my journey has to follow a very specific course that I constructed. So why was nothing happening as I willed it? Why was my master plan so riddled with holes?
I can't make sense of ways bigger than me. Trying to, is missing the greater point. It's as bizarre as holding on to something you claim to want released. I am melancholy, sad and experiencing the most tremendous peace of my life, today. And I couldn't make sense of it if you begged me to. I have no net. I have no way of knowing what's around the next bend...but I'm not worried about, either. At least not today.
Yesterday, I required a nap. As I lay there, somewhere between asleep and awake a thought came to me, and I said it aloud.
"If I had to go back, and repeat all of these steps again - the pain, the loss, the sadness as well as the joy of knowing him, learning him and loving him and the entire evolution...I would do it. Without hesitation."
Those same tears came. The same ones that spilled so readily that day in the truck, years ago. My intuition knew then, what it knows now. And on those precious days when I let it speak to me, I experience the essence of truth and acceptance.
Sometimes you just have to let it go....and accept.
Your experiences. Your history. The pain. The joy. The heartache. The rise. The fall. To do so is to acknowledge that every little event has its purpose. There are no mistakes. There are only life markers...and what you choose to make of them.
He called again this morning, but I knew he would. You know by now that that's the way we've always worked. When I opened my eyes hours earlier, my heart whispered to him a quiet, "I miss you, Big Cat." I didn't kick my own ass over it, I just acknowledged the sensation. No fear. No shame. But with a great awareness that none of that, of this...changes what is. And the feelings, none of them, will kill me. I answered the phone, with no anxiety, I just said hello. As I sipped my morning coffee, we shared a morning laugh and few minutes of conversation. I wished him a good day, and hung up. And I missed him when it was over. But no feeling, bad or good was designed to last forever.
It is, what it is. I smiled. I'm not trapped by my feelings anymore. I can love him, always. And I will. But there is still a journey that I must take. And the same goes for him. I can't blindly rest my hopes on those paths crossing. My heart is open. And so are my eyes.
I push away fear. And I trust that there is no reason to look down. I'm exceedingly grateful for that.