coddiwomple
“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.”
Dear Simone,
It is your birthday tomorrow, and I do not feel like celebrating. Last year I put on a yellow blouse and purchased a bottle of Portuguese wine I drank from a glass tumbler. When I moved, I bought a set of four squat wine decanters from West Elm and gave them to a girl named Kassandra.
I also gave her my Canon Rebel camera, plum purple yoga bolster, and floral-print curtains from Anthropologie. She accused me of leaving a desk full of termites (!) and when I showed up to talk about it, she brushed it off.
I was mad at my boyfriend; I've navigated this move alone.
Strick the match for each apology and light the bitch up.
I sometimes feel like people save the worst of themselves for me because I accept whatever arises.
I walked to the beach yesterday to meet up with A and H. I ran most of the way to make my heart work. It's the warmest I've felt in weeks. My nose ran faster than my feet, and I arrived at the bank breathless and dewy. I stripped his jacket and my seafoam green sweater and walked in the sand with the sun on my back.
H only talks to A in Arabic, even when I am around, even though they both understand and speak English well. Whether or not it's conscious, the exclusion is apparent.
Unless I'm directly spoken to or provoke discussion, I sit mute and watch the waves. These moments provoke me, yet I say nothing.
It's interesting to sit in vexation and witness the sensation in my body. Anger makes my heart beat furiously and my skin tingle. Sometimes I sit on my hands. Sometimes I want to stand up and shout, speak English! It is common for H to start a conversation with me and flip to Arabic when A brings his attention to what we are discussing. These occurrences have more to do with power and showing me my place in Morocco. I am in their country; the cultural rules differ greatly from America. When I sit in my heart and contemplate A, I know it is not about power or manipulation; he just isn't thinking. When we are playing and he is excited, he will move back and forth between Arabic and English words. Or I ask what the words mean; I request clarity and he provides it. I keep up by identifying with the overall concept of what is expressed.
It is not the same with his friend. It feels intentional. It feels repressive.
I've felt very frustrated lately, resulting from so many events being outside of my control. The ants are running around the kitchen when I wake up. Before I make my coffee, I wipe the counters, dishes in the drying rack, and utensils in the metallic container, stovetop, and sink free of the determined little insects. I flush them in bundles in the toilet to avoid swarms in the garbage pail under the sink.
Ants symbolize cooperative effort, overcoming hardship and working together to benefit the greater good. I've been sitting in what I am meant to learn from these insistent creatures.
I was asked to teach yoga once per week for a group in Agdal and the back and forth with the organizer has been time-consuming and tedious. The same can be said of the meditation circles; nothing comes to fruition and I become bored and irritable by the lack of manifestation. I prefer being alone.
I am starting to think that I value progress over the people, Simone.
I feel the best when I am moving things forward, kicking the can, as I like to say. I can hear my friend say, at what cost? What lengths will I go to uphold Beauty, Truth, and Justice? Do I keep letting go and moving onward, despite losing people I've loved, if they do not uphold and support this evolution in action?
My dreams are so vivid I feel manic. Each night I come alive and am lulled into sleep with the morning prayers. The cold has wrapped me in a taunt cacoon and I move through the day in a feild of gauze. My wings are sewn tightly to my body. I cannot see through the mist. Maybe there is nothing to see.
The only moment I feel truly alive is when I sit down to write. My hands are often cold and my fingers numb. Winter can slow down my body but never my thoughts! I run rampant as a deer in a meadow, seeking white flowers to chew and dew to drink.
Who will be at my side if I keep moving ahead at this frenetic pace? Do I need people with me? Perhaps this is why the ants have arrived. Moral support and emotional encouragement. Keep working.
Clara sent me a voice memo saying she needed to remember to put her head down and work. Get through the tedious tasks to focus on the bigger picture.
This is my life, Simone. Plodding along as a donkey pulling its cart of fruit. My cart is weighted by emotions I do not vent and the words I will not say to avoid a disagreement.
The fruit will be rotten when I arrive and who will be with me to sip its wine?
I have no one to celebrate you this week, Simone and it was the same as your birthday last year. I am on the beam in a party dress with no one to tell me how wonderful I look!
I've never wanted followers, anyway. I do crave validation. Feedback is one way to fulfill a lack. I want a direction and do not want to be the one pointing.
I think this is part of the reason I am so flummoxed; I want to be lead.
My leadership is the creaking back door- you do not know of my presence until I am gone.
Photo source.
