terror seizes me from the chest.

"I am going to be passing through Milwaukee this weekend and then also during the beginning of the first week in September. I hear you are busy but I will give you a call. I'd like to get together and talk some things through. I hope that you and the kid are well."

these are all the words that he could conjure up after months of absence. of waiting, longing for the presence of what i came to understand as my "other half," whatever that is meaning to folks these days. 8 months since christmas, almost nine. looking daily at unfamiliar objects and longing for breakfast in bed. (coffee, or tea?)

neither, apparently.

feeling as if though i've been better than fair, better than good. giving opportunities for the door to be shut quietly and mess-lessly. anything but the dissolving of my heart, and my hopes.

IF, he once said. about coming back. somewhere, i must have filed that away in my mind, knowing how serious it can be to fall in love with a concept. an idea. a promise. (how does "the rest of our lives" sound as a concept/idea/promise?) IF i can come back to my senses, what am i to make of all this non-sense?

a photograph of him hugging his father on the bookshelf, connecting in tears with his family over his absence and the misery those promises brought me. what was i thinking? what am i still thinking?

there's a thing inside of me that hates myself because i can't help it- i know i love him. there's a thing inside of me that thinks, he'll come home eventually, and you'll get everything worked out. but there's another part of me that knows better. (it doesn't make me wish i were any less wrong.)

i've survived one more lunar eclipse. i can't look the moon in the face anymore without seeing his eyes laughing back at me.

"where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell."
edna st. vincent millay

for emily, wherever i may find her

i have a sister, older than me. i've not "met her" but her name is jill.

was. was jill. before my mother gave her up for adoption so many years ago, before she'd even met my father, or thought of any of us at all, her name was jill. jill was the first of 4 dynamic personalities that my mother would bring forth from her womb.

every year, my mother would lock herself in her room and cry. "it's her birthday today." jill's birthday, one of the many days i am certian that my mother thought about this lost little girl, celebrated with a curtian of tears. there have been curtians of tears, and little conversation.

checking messages, i listen. 16 new, after 5 days out of town. 4 from my mother, "call me." that standard exchange, nothing more. only, there is more. something desparate and urgent which is echoed in the voices of my sister and aunt. "call us." they are chanting there, leaving no clues.

my thoughts go first to my son, with his father the past few days. i have been dreaming in the east coast, making revolution and love. someone would have told me immediately somehow.... i move on. grandparents. brother. i think of everyone i know. something has happened. [what is it? won't somebody tell me what is happening?]my mother's phone goes to voicemail. i leave a hasty message and pace through the kitchen before calling my sister.

what is happening? "call mom."


we found her. what? who did we find? she found me. what are you saying?

that jill is alive and well.
i met her.
and she knows you.

breathing stops. what is happening here? the words i cannot find swirl in my head as i choke. choke. choke. her name is emily now, and she's your sister. you know her.

so, i do know her, though not well. i am fighting mental lions as i wait for the inevitable. this one's for emily, wherever i may find her.

tcob with totb

what? for those of you who have missed the last week of my life (which is most of you, as i haven't seen anyone for months) i went to boston for this year's "think outside the bomb" conference. the whole thing was amazing. really. i made some incredible new friends, have created memories which will last a lifetime, etc etc. i definitely took care of business.

the best part, for me, was that i think i found a safe space in which to operate realistically. back home, it's hard to create that feeling with folks who could care less. i struggle to get involved with pre-established groups, but they're seemingly so caught up in their own pre-existing structures, that they aren't interested.

i met musicians, artists, activists, tarot-readers, story-tellers, and accordian players. a haitian, german, dane, etc. i met the sun's rays one morning on the rooftop of a revolutionary church in the heart of one of america's oldest cities, and that sunlight was ushered by the sound of a flute after a beautiful evening of real life humanity.

i was moved. moved to speak, yes, but more importantly, moved to act. i made an action plan, which i will publish at another time in the near future. i have a responsibility as a citizen of the world to do what i can. there is music to be made, stories to be told, water-boarding to be committed (what?? long story... i heard it second-hand.)

i must say that i am certianly satisfied. it's good to be home.