Evolving 101

I heard this somewhere: "If you continue down the same road you've been on, and you want to know what the next five years of your life will look like, all you have to do is look at the last five."

My life doesn't resemble the life I had five days ago let alone five years ago, and this whole awakening thing, cracking open, growing up, whatever you call it, it's a long and grueling process and can be a real nasty bitch. It's also a rush, a joyride, a surprise everyday, but man do I understand why people want to stay right where they are.

Flowers for me

Danger at the door

Annie: "You know what I realized?"

Katie: "What?"

Annie: "Having a buzzer is safer than having a doorman."

Katie: "Why is that?"

Annie: "Because someone could come in and kill the doorman and then you're totally exposed."

Katie: "Well, that's extreme."

Annie: "I mean, you can kill a doorman but you can't kill a buzzer."

A pea and a Pod

Coming clean

Evolving 101

It's easy to run into walls, get knocked down, tell yourself stories then lock it away. It's harder to hold up mirrors, challenge beliefs, open your heart and be left standing more of who you were born to be.

~kb.

Mac Attack

Annie: "Mommy, why do they use Dell computers at schools? Why don't they use Macintosh?"

Katie: "Because Macs are much more expensive than Dells."

Annie: "Yeah, they're much more fancy and sophisticated."

Katie: "Yeah, and we have Macs because we're fancy and sophisticated people."

Annie: "Well, Daddy may be sophisticated, and you may be fancy, but Daddy isn't fancy and you are not sophisticated!"

Fact # 933

My mother once lived with a stunningly handsome jazz trumpeter named Miff.

For Antoinette

Somewhere.

What I like at 72% humidity

Iced coffee, freshly manicured feet, a bath, a book and a healthy dose of clarity.

I'm no deer

Joke by Annie

Q: What does a Jamaican guy say when the White Wizard from Lord of the Rings is feeling grumpy?

A: "Don't be sour, mahn."

In Real Time

Awake from a dream, the rain falls, a fan blows, I could sleep if Annie were here.

Monday night

Today I made copies of Cold Tea to send off to a few more festivals, it was the first time I watched it in months. It made me long for my father as if he just died, it made me want to turn back the clock. It made me cry for all of the people I love and miss, and for all the people I never knew.

I sense perception

Intense or in love, in grips or in growth, Kimba, Kiki or Katie.

Monday morning light

In my dreams

It's night time, I walk down Broadway, a powerful wind blows south and there's not a car or pedestrian in sight. I open an umbrella, hold it out in front of me, bend my knees, and like being on the best ride of my life, the wind takes me tearing down the street at full speed. I am free, my black skirt whipping behind me, a huge smile on my face. When I see Annie on the corner of Broadway and 84th, I come to a stop. I put down my umbrella, stand back and watch her. I'm not sure I want to approach; I'm having so much fun on my own, but it's obvious she's not feeling well. She tries to spit something out of her mouth; she has tears in her eyes. I walk up and when she sees me standing before her, she looks surprised.

"Come with me," I say.

Thankful

I'm thankful I'm not limited by religion, that I don't see in black and white, that I'm not self-righteous or locked into thinking there is a right and wrong way to live. I'm thankful to understand that in the midst of heartache, in the midst of loss and grief, the universe is unfolding, connections are being made, lives are being dismantled and put back together. I'm thankful I see life as something so much more complex than what can be made sense of by Dr. Phil or Oprah. I'm thankful I know that suffering a broken heart is not easily analyzed, but rather a wake-up call to one's soul.

Pain is a chance to step inside, to test our humanity, shake up beliefs and hold up mirrors. I'm thankful that we bang into walls, repeat mistakes and try again.

Saturday

We think, we cry, we feel; we compose, we write, we paint. We don't know the absolute truth, we don’t have all the answers; we are flawed human beings and sometimes we make no sense... while we try to make sense.

~kb.

Tonight

Reach out, lock in, hold tight, let go. Speak in dreams, hear the call, stand up and love.

~kb.

I sense perception

Yesterday someone said my blog was intimidating, another called it a favorite, one believed it held back and another thought it intensely revealing.

What I like at 62 degrees

Annie off of school and in my bed, the smell of a late breakfast cooking, the possibility of something new.

Real love

He told me he wanted to make me coffee, but when I sipped it he hardly looked at me. He told me he wanted to play for me, but when he did he seemed a million miles away. He told me when we made love for the first time he would stare into my eyes, but I don't believe he ever did.

Listening to at the moment...

Could you be loved

I came face to face with a man who told me I was the great love of his life and that he connected with me on every level imaginable. He made me laugh and touched my heart, I could listen to him talk for hours. I was in awe of his talent and wooed by his masculinity, he liked my humor, my girlish side, the way I made him feel. So, geographical and other obstacles (both major and minor) aside, it sounded like the journey should have continued, but it ended before it began.

Who are we when we stand before a potential partner? I assumed it was just he and I in the room, but I forgot that the deepest parts of ourselves also come along for the ride and eventually ruin the fantasy by raining on our love parade.

When I laid my eyes on him I was overcome with love and desire. It wasn't because I was relieved that he smelled good or because he looked better than I imagined he would. Aside from him being lovable to me, it was because I am a person who is ready to love, a person for whom wanting to give love has always been, to a certain degree, greater than my need to receive it.

If there's a trend in my romantic relationships it's that I fall for men who are in one way or another unavailable. Yes, when I was little my father was rarely around; he was holed up in his office for days at a time, writing one novel after another. I'm sure I wanted to give him love but at least while I was very young, he wasn't there to receive it. Sorry for the armchair psychology, but I'm not finished.

I came face to face with a man who had, up until that point, been free to dream of being with a woman like me, a woman who inspired him creatively and sexually. He could have fantasies of living a mutually fulfilled and artistic life with someone who shared his passion and understood him at his core, but he also has a history, and like me, like everyone, a set of beliefs about himself that, like a machine, are always operating below the surface.

It's possible that it serves a man to be the knight in shining armor to the women in his life, after all, it's safe. When one person is saving another, how can real intimacy happen? If real intimacy can't happen then there is no danger of being hurt, abandoned or destroyed. The dream he had of a life with me was a healthy dream, but all he had to do was take one look into my eyes to know I was not a damsel in distress and that I would not need saving. All he had to do was see how I looked at him to know the only way I could love him would be in the deepest way. Perhaps turning me into a reality, although once at the top of his agenda, would prove to be a threat in ways he'd not imagined.

The question kept at me, did he really want a woman who could touch him so deeply, connect so profoundly, love so intensely? Did he really want a woman to share his life the way he knew I would, or did he have the life he had because it was exactly the life he needed? Regardless of my patterns, I was ready to love this man, but was I ready to love a man who would love me back? There’s no real intimacy in loving a man who can’t love me back, and if there’s no real intimacy then there’s no danger of being hurt, abandoned or destroyed.

I thought the brakes were hit because there were obstacles, then because he wasn't ready, then because I wasn't enough, then I because I was too much. Now I wonder if it was something more.

When the man of my dreams walked into the room he carried with him a bag full of goodies, but what neither of us knew was that he also carried the deepest part of himself; the boy who had beliefs about who and what he was, what he did and did not deserve. When I walked into the room I carried a suitcase, but I also carried the deepest part of myself; the girl who had beliefs about who and what she was, what she did and did not deserve.

We were not alone in the room that day, the deepest parts of ourselves were there standing guard the entire time. And they weighed risks, had their say, and rained on our love parade.

In my dreams

Last night I closed my eyes and asked for answers to come to me in dreams. And what came had no stage, no scene, no cast of characters. The dream was just music, sweet and pained, Bill Evans.

There’s a lingering in each moment before he touches a key, a lingering that is both heavy and light, deliberate and accidental, all existing at the same time.

Last night I closed my eyes and asked for answers to come to me in dreams, and the music cradled me in the kind of suspended moment reserved for fathers who watch their children sleep.

Last night I asked for answers and if they came, the answers were clear: Everything is real and unreal, it’s moving but remains still, it’s heavy and light, deliberate and accidental, and it's all existing at the same time.

In My Room

Quote

“One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.”

~Oscar Wilde

In my dreams

Seth says before you sleep, it's good to call upon your dreams. Among other things, dreams can offer healing, bring clarity and reveal answers. Sometimes the purpose of a dream is simply to magnify our fear, then the choice is up to us; do we continue to hold it tight, or do we finally let it go?

Last night I dreamed that my friend was going off to marry her man. The day they were to leave, the man approached me, declared his love and asked if I would be the one to marry him. Enthusiastically, I said yes. The man said he would leave with my friend as planned, then I would meet up with him at a later time. For some reason I never once took my friend or the reality of the situation into consideration; he loved me, I loved him, so naturally we would be together. I never once thought things would turn out less than perfectly, and like an enthusiastic bride, I went shopping for lingerie.

I finally arrived at our meeting place but my husband-to-be was cold and distant. He didn't look at me as if he were a man in love, he didn't behave like a man who was standing before the woman of his dreams, and soon I discovered there was actually a third woman in the mix and that I was merely part of a complex and cruel insurance scam.

In Real Time

Rain falls, humidity breaks, a cello plays from the apartment above. I'll read a book, return a call, then ask for dreams before I sleep.

Annie & Tinkerbelle

The connection is deep, the understanding profound, and the beauty in their silence together touches me like nothing else.

My big boy

Who's the most handsome boy at the barn?

Healthy Horse

Crimped oats, colloidal minerals, soy & coconut oil.

In my dreams

Last night I had a dream I received a letter from a man who broke my heart. No matter how closely I held the words to the light, the letter remained out of focus and I was left with no understanding of its intended message.

Sending smiles

To my mother in England today.

The edge

When I moved into my own place almost a year ago, I never had an illusion that I would meet a man half as great as David. A man with the integrity, the character, the level of connectedness to humanity and to the world. But there is so much more to making a marriage than finding a great person, and if we accept the nature of change, if we don't hold to the idea that we must end up with the person we started with, if we can embrace that life is long and the roads turn, then when we are faced in another direction we can truly live life as it's meant to be lived.

My father once told me the best time to do something is when you're afraid, that only when you push past what stands in your way do you truly evolve. David tells me that life is meant to be lived on the edge of your fears, that growth can only happen when you have one eye open to what holds you back.

Today David said to me, "When one finds themselves in a place where they are satisfied and content, when one says, I've got what I want and now I'm done, like a piece of fruit that reaches its ripeness, it eventually begins to rot."

I found myself in a place where, to some degree, I was content. I had a beautiful home and a loving husband with whom I connected deeply. We were an intellectual match and creative allies, devoted parents to our child. But I wasn’t living a life that reflected my nature, who I was born, who I had become, and so I stood at the edge of my fears and I jumped.

Almost a year ago I sat in my apartment staring at walls and looking out windows, and in all of that silence, in all of that space, I found answers that lead me from one day to the next. And as the answers came and carried me away from the familiarity of my life and the security of my vows, I listened.

I met David when I was 25. He became my sweetheart then my husband, then the father of my child. Then he became the person who knew me better than anyone; and now, for lack of better words, he is my best friend. Our lives look so different today than we imagined 18 winters ago, but if we can put down the brush, if we can stop trying to create a vision of who and what we are, how we look to our neighbors and to the world, if we can be quiet, the answers will keep coming. And if we listen, they will lead us to the edge of our fears, and to the place where life can be lived as it is meant to be lived.

In Real Time

76 degrees, out of a shower, fan blows, refrigerator hums, asleep soon.

Water under the bridge

Katie: "David, will you hand me my Volvic?"

David: "Don't you know where your volvic is? Do I have to do everything now?"

What I like at 90 degrees

A single chirping bird, a cross-breeze, clean sheets, comfortable shorts, my Dad's ring.

Quote

"Good lingerie never goes to waste."

~Tai Moses

Music to my ears

Outside my bedroom window stands a tree that houses what sounds like a thousand birds, and each of those birds has a different sound, a different call, a different song they sing. Living in the city one would surely understand what a gift it is to be near such sound, it's like the Amazon of Manhattan. The only thing is, the birds are like music to me. When I'm happy they intensify my joy, when I'm sleeping they wake me early, and when I'm sad they make me just a little sadder.

Girl

Annie: "Mommy, what's bothering you these days?"

Me: "Oh, it's just life stuff. When you grow up I'll tell you all about what I'm going through right now."

Annie: "I don't think you should wait until I'm grown up to tell me, you should let it out because if you don't let it out it might make you sick."

Me: "That's okay baby, I have friends to talk to, it's not really appropriate for me to discuss my problems with you."

Annie: "I think it's appropriate. Please Mommy, tell me what it is."

Me: "Well, I went on my trip and I saw my friend and he really hurt my feelings. So I came home early because I really missed you and needed to be with you."

Annie: "But tell me all of it."

Me: "That's pretty much all of it."

Annie: "But you'll tell me more about it when I'm grown?"

Me: "I will baby."

Annie: "Do you want me to send a mean text message to the person who hurt your feelings?"

Me: "No honey."

Annie: "No body hurts my Mommy's feelings unless I say so!"

The way things aren't

Today I thought I saw an old man playing a harmonica, but it was just the sound of a car's squeaky breaks beside an old man eating a bagel.

Wednesday morning

He never walked my street, climbed my stairs, opened my door or slept in my bed, yet there are reminders of him everywhere.

In my dreams

Last night I dreamed I wrote a children's book called, "The Goat Who Saved the Upper West Side."

What's good about feeling bad

Nesting in my apartment becomes particularly comforting, eating becomes a chore so losing weight becomes easy, my child's embrace feels like medicine, unpacking a sexy dress I never wore reminds me that summer is near, a cup of coffee and some stimulating conversation can turn my mood around.

She knows best

When I take down something I've posted, it's because I've changed my mind about it. When I remove a photo of myself, it's because my mom tells me I look tortured in the picture and it shouldn't be on the blog.

I listen to my mother. Most of the time.

What things cost

I rejected reality, took words spoken in moments and let them live in the world. I packed my bags, boarded a plane, walked into fire, and this morning when I opened my eyes, I was hit as I am every morning, with the price I pay.

In Real Time

Annie is in bed at home, the clarinet player blows and the sound circles through the hot night air. I am alone and lonely in my apartment, but it's just where I want to be.

Central Park Today

Reasons

He gave me a reason for not being with me, but I never believed it was the only reason. Ridiculously, I thought it was the 10 pounds I recently gained, then I believed I wasn't enough for him. But after sitting with it for a day, I now believe I may actually have been too much for him. Too much woman, too much girl, too much mouth, too much sound, too much affection, too much sex. Too much Katie.

And the thing is, there's nothing I could or would do to change that.

I am her.

I'm Free!