Home. Community.

"We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place
half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time
to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with
passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of
hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will
celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can
be free."-Starhawk

Home. Where is it? What does it look like? Feel like? Smell like? Is it fluid like ancient rivers that flow for centuries, or is it unchanged, firmly entrenched in the crevices of our memories? These are the questions I've been pondering (again) as I weeded through the stuff of the past ten years of my life, discarded what I could, and moved what I felt worth keeping into a new place. So. much. stuff. And all of it attached to images, smells, feelings that surprised me with their intensity and intimacy and emotionality - and yes, their pain, too.
So many nights recently I've sat in front of a cabinet or open drawers and sifted through the forgotten contents inside. I read letters from my great-aunts full of old school advice (have sex every day; freshen up and put on makeup every night...um...ahem) and wishing me luck and happiness with my marriage and in my life. Like my baby were still wearing it, I unearthed and cradled the outfit she wore home from the hospital; the booties and tiny hat caught the tears sliding down my cheeks. Taking a deep breath, I wrapped the wedding photos in plastic and packed them away - unwilling to spend any time trying to recognize the people in them, trying to remember what they were thinking. what they were hoping. I gave away vases, silver platters, wine glasses, and cake knives engraved with our names. Wearily, I packed china and crystal and linens and all of the other fine things young brides desire but never quite getting around to using (except my grandma's china: months ago, I decided I was going to use it as my day-to-day set and enjoy it, damnit!). Annoyed, I waded through the endless clothes and the mounds of toys. So. much. stuff. Then lovingly, there were the books. Absently, the cd's. Mindlessly, the files. I tossed bags and bags and bags of trash, and I gave away a pile to the Salvation Army so large it almost filled my empty living room. And then I looked around at the vastness. The beautiful place I called home - my favorite space in which I've lived thus far in my life - and for just a moment, I wanted to surrender. To throw my hands up and tell whomever it is in the Universe listening in times like these, "I can't do this."
But I didn't.
Instead, my little one and I are safely ensconced in our new place, which being the home of one of my best friends and her girls, isn't new at all. We are starting to build our own little community, our own little female circle where as said in the quote above, "there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats". There will be arms to hold me when I falter, and my own will be open to catch them when they do. I'm thinking this new life, this next phase - it might be home.

Will I Get There?

I love this poem, A Woman Alone, by Denise Levertov. She makes solitude sound so seductive; I wonder if I'll ever get to this place.

A Woman Alone

When she cannot be sure
which of two lovers it was with whom she felt
this or that moment of pleasure, of something fiery
streaking from head to heels, the way the white
flame of a cascade streaks a mountainside
seen from a car across a valley, the car
changing gear, skirting a precipice,
climbing . . .
When she can sit or walk for hours after a movie
talking earnestly and with bursts of laughter
with friends, without worrying
that it's late, dinner at midnight, her time
spent without counting the change . . .
When half her bed is covered with books
and no one is kept awake by the reading light
and she disconnects the phone, to sleep till noon . . .
Then
self-pity dries up, a joy
untainted by guilt lifts her.
She has fears, but not about loneliness;
fears about how to deal with the aging
of her body—how to deal
with photographs and the mirror. She feels
so much younger and more beautiful
than the looks. At her happiest
—or even in the midst of
some less than joyful hour, sweating
patiently through a heatwave in the city
or hearing the sparrows at daybreak, dully gray,
toneless, the sound of fatigue—
a kind of sober euphoria makes her believe
in her future as an old woman, a wanderer
seamed and brown,
little luxuries of the middle of life all gone,
watching cities and rivers, people and mountains,
without being watched; not grim nor sad,
an old winedrinking woman, who knows
the old roads, grass-grown, and laughs to herself . . .
She knows it can't be:
that's Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby from The Water Babies,
no one can walk the world any more,
a world of fumes and decibels.
But she thinks maybe
she could get to be tough and wise, some way,
anyway. Now at least
she is past the time of mourning,
now she can say without shame or deceit,
O blessed Solitude.



h/t to Mata of Time's Fool for the reminder of this poem in her National Poetry Month postings.

Giggling

If you want to, go to Postcards From Yo Momma. So funny...

A Change Is Gonna Come

Tina Turner & Robert Cray

The Spoken Word

I went with a friend last night to a poetry slam and had a blast. The featured poet before the slam was Derrick Brown. He (I mean his...um...poetry of course) was riveting, imaginative, alluring, and funny. And he was downright adorable in that intellectual and spoken way. He has a website on which his voice over is hilarious. Check him out.

Friday Funny

This is another great image from the Syracuse Cultural Workers Tools for Change catalog. I'm not a bumper sticker kind of girl, but this one may just sway me!