ozgürlük
I was bathing in the moonlight, drowning in the white noise of the crickets and beetles climbing the olive tree. It spits seeds, flicking leaves, and I sweep obsessively. It’s nice to have a routine. I washed the dishes with pomegranate soap and dried them on the pink towel. Two cups are glass, and two are ceramic. I use the glass for tea and ceramic for coffee. Kahvaltı, under the coffee. This is the term for Turkish breakfast. You take it with black tea and have a coffee afterward. I dined with Filiz and Morris Sunday morning. I took the small spoon, tapped the egg, and sprinkled it with the spices I took with my index finger and thumb from the little green dish. There was homemade bread with marmalade. Filiz mixed tahini with molasses to create a type of spread. Cheeses and olives and green beans I ate with my fingers. It is a relief to be amongst friends who eat with their hands!
I fed the cacti outside and listened to the orange blossoms. Everything has something to say if you give it a little time. Emre keeps saying we will take it slow, and I don't have the heart to tell him I do everything quickly or not at all! Perhaps I will learn a new way. That is what this time is about. Being in the forest, I can hear the dogs howl who live next door, and their guttural cries rouse me from bed before the sun. I put my feet on the floor in search of God. I point and flex until my calves burn. The dexterity of my feet depends on my effort, and when I'm tired, I turn toward the Goddess for motivation.
I've been searching for something this whole time, not knowing that I already have it. My mom used to wander around the house looking for her glasses, not realizing they were on her head. My relationship with Truth is the same; it is here, and all I had to do was ask the question and watch the orange blossoms.
Listen, the trees speak. I felt it first in France in that small enclave I walked in the evening when the sun was low and I could witness the lavender wash over the field. A tight circle of fir trees, and I put myself in the center and allowed the whispers to enter my body.
Once I understand how to do something, it becomes much easier with the repeated act. Heartbreak is not the same. It hurts with a renewed freshness each time! How often have I put myself in a position to be flung head-first from the cliff with my eyes closed? Women used to be tied with a bag over their heads and flung into the sea. Would you rather have the option to close your eyes or have someone else do it for you? I want to know that I can open when desired. To be contained by another person’s will is perhaps one of the greatest acts of harm. I hope I have never made anyone feel they had to submit to me.
I am not a demanding person. I want everything. I ask for nothing. I stick a palm out to point, and at the last moment, my elbows take me on a different course. I am led by jutting angles and impromptu provokations. The photographer at the dance class captured how ecstatic I feel toward life! I look a little pained at times, and in other moments I am lost in a trance with my hands flung to the side.
Sometimes I wish I looked a different way. Longer, a little bit in the legs. Softer in the shoulders. I can practice surrender in my torso with deeper breathing though there is nothing to do about the length of my limbs. The other dancers look bolder, whereas I am a blur of green and blue. I wore my jade ring and a shirt that did not compliment my frame. I did not know we were to be photographed. Perhaps it is better this way- to be surprised by it all!
The shock of life keeps me humming underwater and just above the horizon. Fantasmagoria; when I am hollowed out, little things wriggle in places I cannot touch. I am full of Shakti and I float so high! I must sit on the ground and press my thighs to the earth. Come to me, he says. Don’t stay away so long. What is it to be in love? I cannot tell the difference between my lust and loyalty. As long as the question is asked, I can do no harm. Clara posed it - am I acting from integrity?
Integral is the whole, a circle, unity, measured on either side. It is the acorn with its cap on and the blue bug with one antenna that pokes my wrist. It did not sting me, but the striped cat bit my armpit. It likes to rub its chin against my ribs when I am in a corpse pose. I enjoy it. I like to be touched. Brushed with soft fur on the mourning silk. Textures I cannot contain, no matter how many times I exhale. Soft, surrender, be still. Come to me.
I want to reply; I don’t know you.
But I can’t because it isn’t true.
I feel like I have lived this before, a succession of events with no end goal. I don’t set an alarm. My body knows what five am feels like, and I rise, and the coffee creates itself. Seed knocks at the tapered glass doors, and I glide outside as if held upright by the clouds. It doesn’t matter where I go because here I am. That dark thing follows me. It is sticky and heavy and tastes like burnt chestnuts. It sounds like a clock that’s sped up, so the notes are uneven.
The trick is to let the thing pass and soothe it with cold mint tea. I sit and wait. I send blessings of green light into the forest that seeps into the roots for my sisters to receive on the other side of the world. Do they feel me when they sleep? Can they taste the grief? Pain is porous, and if I have it inside of me, it lives in them as well.
Every story starts at the end. It must. There is no other way but backward. I have died, and this is my rebirth. I cannot tell you the tale unless I’ve acknowledged the ending. Storytelling is reflection, the process of creating lyrics and myths from memory.
This is all we have; the moments we take and press into our bodies. I dance to decant the episodes. I stretch to release the sorrow. The Italian girl who was my partner across the rubber floor is among the strongest women I’ve met on the road. She had dark eyes and robust legs and told me exactly what she wanted with each gesture. I was a piece of furniture, and she moved me around the house until she found the place by the window where she wanted to sit and have her tea.
I was a sofa, I think. Or a stool
Photo source.
