waiting... to rise.

She speaks as if someone with true experience. Her words are so specifically chosen that you almost pity them, so micromanaged inside that mind. Her tones communicate self righteousness, while her ideas communicate humility, a manner confusing in it's intent. Perhaps that is the purpose, to confuse just enough so that none may assume to know true meaning at any time. Perhaps it is just her self defense mechanism. We all have them, and we tend to deny those we use most.

She drives me to frustration regularly, but I am grateful she has been named the one to teach our children. Something about her confidence gives them confidence in her, in her words & teachings to them. I've yet to hear her lie to them or not admit when she is unsure. But only to them.

Her tones change around the young ones. From one who knows better than adults to one who is only inspired by evolving minds, one who desires to provoke thinking and debating, questioning and observing, guessing and imagining, learning and discovering. And so, no matter my personal opinions of her relating to myself and my peers, she was our greatest asset to prod the children's minds, pushing them to become the wisest adults we could ask for.

And is that not our purpose as parents, to push our children to surpass ourselves?

Perhaps that is why she relates to them far better than any of the parents, because we are cookies that have already been baked, and they are just potential filled dough, waiting for her hands to kneed it, waiting
to rise.

heavy beyond weight

"At first there were just a couple of us. Trying to find water, trying to keep moving. The first little town we came across, we searched 'til we found one of those Army stores. Guns, ammo, camping gear, fishing equipment, batteries, lights, emergency rations, canteens, everything we needed in one place. Then we just kept going, finding people here and there along our way. We didn't stick around too long with any, though. We were all better off that way. Too much weight, carrying too many people, no, we needed to stay just a quick few, light & ready.
Most groups we ran into assumed on sight that we were some kind of movie-style militia, hoping to kill, rob, rape & pillage. Thank God television is gone, after all the good THAT's done us." He smiled, adding, "But we just know how to travel," as he looked around, as if to say, 'look at all this, around your camp, all this baggage'.
And yet, he & I both knew the truth. He traveled so lightly because he already carried a heaviness beyond his own weight, deep within himself, with every step he took.

no one word heavy enough

I can't hear your voice any more. I can't remember what it sounded like. Your face is still there, tucked in my memory, but the one photo I saved helps with that. You'd have said "I told ya so" if you were here - after all the years of pictures I took, you calling me "camera crazy", making you smile every time... All those pictures, and only the one remains. But they can see you, as they grow, and never forget you, because of that one. Their daddy, their father, their hero. I miss you constantly. My rock. But you gave your life so that we may live, and I will honor that by not letting any of us die inside, because of all of this. Too much change too fast, can that be called "trauma"? There is no one word heavy enough for what we just survived. Maybe there will be someday, but not yet.

No relief from consequence

We should have seen it coming. The signs were all there, but hindsight lets one see the details in their entirety in a way the present moment refuses to allow. If we'd known, I cannot even try to list all the things we'd each have done differently. But the facts were too obscure, too varied to see their relation, let alone their meaning. Without stars falling from the sky, the hopeful faith we have that life will continue to maintain its balance tends to prevail. But this time, that faith was wrong, so very, very wrong. And the losses caused by this unintentional error of our human programming, so far beyond any expectation, were blinding. And we are still absorbing the enormity of it. To cast blame is the quickest response, but offers no relief from consequence, offers no response to the haunting question "what now?". No wonder the learned of our time had taught so uniformly the psychology of loss - that acceptance is only the end result of all grieving, that much must be battled before its reprieve may be earned. A lesson I think we're learning and needs be remembered, taught anew to the youth we fight so hard to protect, even if those learned are now long gone. Even if those learned, too, missed all the warning signs we each can see so clearly, now.

Ferocity hiding

A large bed in the center of a room lit only by candles. Silken sheets of deep green, propped on pillows like a Queen. Glass of deep warm wine in one soft hand, the other running over the soft fir of a half wolf, ferocity hiding behind sweetness and sleep, hiding beneath my hands. So then it was too, for the wolf's master, ferocity hiding, long limbs entwined in mine and I sip of the wine. --------------------- My eyes open to the sound of birds, the cold, rough bed linens beneath me, and the sad moment one realizes a dream for what it really is. I rise and face the day, knowing the face from my dream will shatter into my wakefulness and cross my path this day. Foreboding and excitement fight for mind's majority, until referee Wisdom quiets the field. I rise, the ferocity hiding this time, is now mine.

Disappearing Winds

This. This is my happy place. Right here. Surrounded by green and blue, tree and sky, mountain and water, we have finally arrived. Where we are, we know not. But here we stand, knowing from where we've come, what through we've traveled, but blind as to the why. The stars still light the sky here. Even with no moon, the nights are bright. I am not the first nor the last to have noticed, though, that this place carries a strangeness hidden in it's grace. By a certain time each night, before the last have turned to bed, the wind simply vanishes. Regardless of the wind of day, the gusting of early evening, a tidal wave of silent sky washes into this place and over us, forcing out all winds, always when night feels of it's deepest cold. Of course, if a great storm billows by during the hours of darkness, nothing may stay such winds as those. But once noticed, we have found the rhythm of our nights too unusual to deny. And so I say, you disappearing winds, carry with you each day's trials and tears, it's blisters and bruises, it's weight and worry and it's fears. Keep them there away with you, wherever you steal away to each night. Hiding in wait, resting for return with rising sun and opening eyes, ready for a new day, in this new here.

Play on.

I couldn't speak the name. I was somehow hoping I could keep holding my breath, to imprison the moment with a pause button of will. To have more time to reload myself, to absorb all been lain before me. But as with each and every before, this snapshot in time again reclaimed it's movement from my lungs, and the video played on.

Recycled Lessons

Day in and day out, we fight battles, small and large. Some days fewer, some weeks more. Rotating revolutions of recycled lessons to be learned, and, so it seems, a pattern of increasing difficulty appears to follow those who fight valiantly and attempt an openness to at least some growth, to some change. But seems it worst to be one of the many, refusing to face the demons life chooses to send in attack. And so each time a battle is due one, the same wars shall that one fight forever in lost monotony, until the choice to learn, to evolve, to move forward has been made. Yes, new struggles are frightening, in robes of change and unknown, but never knowing a victory over a repetitive rival is destructively disheartening in a way harder to see, but deeper to feel. To never earn gratitude for that moment one's soul realizes it's own strength, to me, is somehow missing the point. Perhaps all these new and exaggerated hardships we are now wrapped in are a sign, a sign that we few have earned this responsibility now before us, the responsibility to evolve.