The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 3
by Mary Mackey

It's easy to love
through a cold spring
when the poles
of the willows
turn green
pollen falls like
a yellow curtain
and the scent of
Paper Whites
clots
the air

but to love for a lifetime
takes talent

you have to mix yourself
with the strange
beauty of someone
else
wake each morning
for 72,000
mornings in
a row so
breathed and
bound and
tangled
that you can hardly
sort out
your arms
and
legs   


you have to
find forgiveness
in everything
even ink stains
and broken
cups

you have to be willing to move through
life
together
the way the long
grasses move
in a field
when you careen
blindly toward
the other
side

there's never going to be anything
straight or predictable
about your path
except the
flattening
and the springing
back

you just go on walking for years
hand in hand
waist deep in the weeds
bent slightly forward
like two question
marks
and all the while it

burns
my dear
it burns beautifully above
you
and goes on
burning
like a relentless
sun

Cute Things

I'm suddenly into "cute things."  I know this is a twisted part of my personality.  Sometimes it flares out without warning.  Like when I'm driving over to my cousins' apartment and "Are You Gonna To Kiss Me" comes on the country radio station that I'm flipping through and all of a sudden I'm screaming in the car and getting all gushy and happy and cutesy.  And then, damn it!  Glee has to be all cute and I'm wriggling with delight and it's just a mess.  CUTE THINGS!!!

Other times I find cute things to be cheesy and annoying.  Yet another contradiction.

Ok.  Lately I've been proud of my body not for what it looks like, but for what it can do.  I like to feel good about how I look, but I've found that when I'm active I care less about what I look like and more about how I feel.  My body can do a hell of a lot.  It can be kick-ass!  I can run four miles!  I can also chase kids around.  I can dance around and sing with my healthy lungs.  It is a gift.  And it feels good.  Thank you, o body of mine.

You know what else is cute?  THIS!!!  AAAAAA!!!!!!!!  CUTENESS!!!

Near my home is a track.  Today I ran around it 12 times.  Well, actually, I ran around it 11 times.  Somewhere in the middle there I walked one lap.

That's three miles!  I am a superhero in my own mind today.

Contradictions

Things I may never reconcile within myself:

1)  I am capable of extraordinarily efficient and powerful self-motivation / I cannot sustain self-motivation to save my life.
2)  I love good music, good food and clean places / I have a strangely trashy alter-ego that leaves food wrappers around the house, listens to Celine Dion and can drink both PBR and Folgers with gusto.
3)  I have a group of intimate, beautiful friends who know and love me and who seek out my company / I sometimes feel left out and out of the loop.
4)  I get mired down in the details, lost and stuck  / I am gifted in the ability to see and understand the Big Picture.
5)  I sabotage myself / I empower myself.

All these are true.  Sometimes simultaneously.  And there are many others.  Will we ever cease to bewilder ourselves and one another?

Later, I stumbled to my bed

All alone in the branches

I laid in the dark

Thinking about all of my friends and their changes

My friends have changed so much.  Are changing so much.  They don't think the same things or the same way anymore.  They don't want the same things.  They don't look the same.  What do I look like?  How have I changed?  I have no idea.  But I lie in the dark and I think about it.  

Via Positiva.

Below you will find my "Via Negativa" post.  But that's not all I wanted to write about tonight.  It's a big part, but I'd like to write something positive as well.  Just don't miss that post down there.  I need some insightful and honest comments.

Last night we went to see The Head and The Heart.  Oh my goodness.  They were so great live.  So great.  I wish you could have been there with me.  Kierst just introduced us to them and I'm loving them more and more as I continue to learn about their music.

Rivers and Roads

A year from now we'll all be gone

All our friends will move away

And they're goin' to better places

But our friends will be gone away

Nothin' is at it has been

And I miss your face like hell

And I guess it's just as well

But I miss your face like hell

Been talkin' 'bout the way things change

And my family lives in a different state

If you don't know what to make of this

Then we will not relate

Said if you don't know what to make of this

Then we will not relate

Rivers and roads

Rivers and roads

Rivers 'til I reach you

There are happier songs too. :)  They're a very happy, dancey band.  But even their happy songs have depth to them.  One more.  And then that's it, I promise.  Don't judge me too badly for the Via Negativa.  But do what you have to do.  Say what you have to say.  I need it.

Listen to this song:  Ghosts

Via Negativa.

Peter and I got a gift certificate to Red Robin for Christmas, so we went there tonight and had a very nice time.  While we were waiting for our check to be processed I watched the large party at the long table next to us.  I think it was a going away party with work friends.  They were all women except for one man, who seemed to be a co-worker, and his family.  I started watching them when the first few women arrived, all older and very friendly with one another.  Then this family arrived and I watched them so intensely that I'm surprised no turned and glared at me.  The wife sat at the far corner of the table, with a small girl between her and her husband, who was seated next to and across from his co-workers.  Their two older sons(as in late and mid-elementary school) were seated at the end of the table with their mom.  Right away the couple made an interesting impression because the woman was tall and heavy and the man was very short and slight with a sort of little dog look about him.  He was engaged in conversation with his co-workers while his wife did her mom thing at the end of the table.  I instantly felt that she was very isolated over there.  She wasn't next to or even near any of the other women, and even her husband was separated from her by this tiny girl tot.  At one point he turned to say something to her and I overheard her say something like, "go ahead and talk to your people," which felt to me and my biased observation like a deliberate continuation of her isolation.

I know nothing about this woman and her life.  Why did I feel so struck by her position at the end of that table?  Maybe it comes back to that association I have in my mind with "pregnant" and "trapped."  She looked so boxed out.  Or would that be boxed in?

I wish I could watch some of you reading this. :)  You have such different associations with the word "pregnant" than I do.  I'm so glad.

Somehow though, I don't think this was about that for me.  I don't think it had anything to do with me wanting or not wanting kids someday.  Because that would never be me if I chose that route.  I would have left the kids with Grandma or stayed at home.  So, if not that, then what?

I didn't like that man.  I wanted him to move his wife over.  Be less a part of his office and more a part of his family.  I realize this is very unfair.  But I will never know him or tell him these things.  They're just in my head(and now on this blog).

Goodness, what was that all about?