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You don't just move into a new year, I repeated to Scott (like I do every year). You must mark last year's passing, celebrate its fulness, and then move deliberately into the next season. There must be ritual, I insisted. Life's pauses are often just an excuse for people to get drunk. Not this girl. Life is what you make of it. There's an abundance of beauty and power and goodness, if you bother to tap into it and contribute to it. So we found a beautiful little coffeeshop keeping out the cold with bright lights and green tea, and we both chewed on our pens thoughtfully and scribbled down transition/new year feelings until we were spent. 2002 Last year with candles and soil and clay pots and poetry I buried Her and grew Serenity. But the year started in war, oddly enough. My war. Scott and I put on armor and fought side by side each week, and I made each day a fight for my life. It didn't have to be that way, of course. But we wanted to consciously evolve while on this planet, so we did what we could to disrupt old patterns and unearth and remove a lot of garbage. Naturally, My war became Our war. I MUST'VE SQUEEZED A COUPLE LIFETIMES INTO LAST YEAR. I skittered about on trails by frozen lakes and rivers, in merciless wind with screaming trees. I decorated our apartment with giant posters shouting out encouragement and life. I painted. I wrote. I read Gloria Steinem's "Revolution from Within" and remembered the power of my childhood and my early friendships: we were a group of singers and painters and writers--lovers of movement and color and song and touch. I decided to be that again. It's what we did together as friends that created the magic. It wasn't lost with youth's passing. I practiced yoga--a lot--many times with a swollen belly, and cried and smiled. And while my body grew strong, my spirit grew large. I found Kris Delmhorst, the Yellow Brick Road, Bryan Kest, and Santa Monica. I ran my first race, 5 miles with Scott on the river road by the lake, and didn't stop even though I thought I would the first second I started running. Then a month later, our second run, 10 miles down Provo Canyon. Overturning fears: downhill skiing, kicking off a waterski and going slalom after failing for years, and then scaling Timpanogos. A mountain goat saluted me at the very tip and confirmed my courage as I tossed a rock off the top, sending Her down with it. Cowboy Junkies, Indigo Girls, and Bela Fleck at Red Butte Gardens. Sunsets and powerful, different people singing their own songs and my songs, too. My roots on Boulder in central Utah with my family, jeep rides and warm, dry wind and the salted earth and its inhabitants. Island Lake and wet, cold, naked courage with the gentle Lioness and then my adorable nephew, remarkably at ease with our three naked butts poised on the edge of that giant rock. Raw, healing foods--taking in Mother Earth with each bite--and a cleanse to symbolically and literally leave all the crap behind,so to speak. Seattle's ferries and wild blackberries and beatniks on bikes. Selling proud, beautiful Babar and confirming our ownership of rugged little Jack, after Kerouac, by strapping a giant kayak to the top at Lake Tahoe. Jazz and SP Coltrain and 'Lita's voice. Watching the joy in their eyes. Fell in love with old friends again, Jason and 'Lita. Fed on their strength for a time. Climbed up to a mountain lake with him, his words calming me with every step. Crawled to her many nights and used her wise soft body for a kleenex. Babbled to her on IM almost daily, cackling and crying from her wit and wisdom. Sobbing at Dewey's departure, feeling and watching a part of me ripped out of my flesh and walking, walking away. Healing wounds. Dragging images of Galadriel and Gollum and Legolas around with me. Galadriel's Forest and Scott's devotion. Finally leaving Courtney Jean and the battlefront. Stumbling as we left over large boulders in our path from the earthquake. Clearing the debris from the war--the stains on our relationship, the hurt that came with incredible sacrifice for a very pointed task. D'ana and sharing and teaching yoga and tasting a bit of nirvana. Uprooting to explore new strengths and courages. Leaving safety and softness for adventure and action. And space. Black, liquid space to move about in with Scott. A place to re-connect and re-create, with the motto of Everything is to be Lived, Everything is a Gift. Letting Abundance define our days and nights here. Even very sick days. Gloved hands squeezing on cold, neon, Korean streets. Giggles and bursts of laughter as Scott rides the wobbly old bike at the gym like a bronco, and everything else he does that delights me. Long conversations about music and art and religion and war. Lots of laughter and love and talk and touch and seeing each other again and again for the first time. Seeing myself with new eyes and new appreciation. Living in the present under the 38th parallel, living a cease-fire just short of a potential nuclear chaos. A Couple Lifetimes, 2002 [2003-01-05]
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Last five letters Gathering [2009-09-04] ?2002, Scott & Celeste. |