Over the Log and Through the Woods

Oh what a journey…over the log and through the woods…there is so much I want to remember…the girl with the gun in her mouth…the backyard with the LCD lights…the truth of what’s working on me…the flexibility I don’t think I have…I bet they’ll think my sun-kissed sun is evidence of my betrayal…there is no way to win with them…there is so much I want to say…how do I say it all?

Don’t mess with my writing, ok! Don’t mess with my wonder, my curiosity, my innocence, and my joy. Don’t try to take from me what isn’t yours because you don’t have it for yourself. Don’t try to bully me, control me, sit on me with your fat fear and your worry about what I might do…worry about what you’re doing right now! Worry about your arrogance, your emptiness, your ugliness and the way you have to control everyone and everything around you. You’re a hypocrite. You made me feel bad about myself. You made me wonder what I was doing wrong. You woke the big bad beast of shame that lives in the firey pit of my belly…he was sleeping, dammit! And now he’s throwing sloppy fire all over the place. Fuck!

I just want it to be easy…I want it to be easy and funny and happy…and carefree…I want it to be surfing and sunbathing and sharing stories…it makes me happy when you tell me stories…I love to hear your stories…I want to hear all the stories in the whole world.

I’m walking down a wooded path, thick with trees, with brush, with leaves, the branches cross overhead like the swords of soldiers making a procession for me…there is light in the distance, really bright, warm light. There is a cleaning and a beach and turquoise water and I am sitting on the beach and I am writing and it’s my fantasy and it calls to me and I wonder if he knows someone in Cabo that I can stay with? I wonder if I can move to Mexico and live on the beach and write my book? And I wonder if I can find the words if I’m far away and my only job is to find the words that say what I want to say? And I wonder if I’ll ever say what I want to say?...and why not? Because you bully me!You worry that I will run away…you worry that I will take something of yours with me…you worry that I want what you have but I don’t! I don’t want what’s yours…I only want what’s mine. I only want the spinning to stop so I can dive down deep and write the soulful things that need to be written.

Rambling…her book was like rambling, like listening to someone who can’t control what she’s thinking, can’t control what she’s writing…and where do the words come from?…they come so fast. I can’t keep up and my wrist starts to cramp. I don’t want to stop today. I don’t want to stop and be good and write something pretty so that everyone will say, ‘oh, you’re writing is so nice!’ I want to be stupid and irreverent and sloppy and I don’t want to live up to your expectations. I want to fail you…I want to let you down so the pressure is off and I don’t have to try anymore.

I want to get off the hook…I want to get off the big fat rusty sharp fish hook that’s tearing through the flesh in my cheek…I am not your catch! I don’t belong to you…you don’t own me and you can’t tell me what to do…I give to you because I love to give…I give to you because it makes me feel good but it doesn’t feel good anymore…it feels forced…it feels compromised…it feels sad and disappointing and draining…I want to feel good! I want you to love me…I want to shine and I want to glow and the more I fill up the room with light, the more I want you to smile and step back and say, ‘I’m so proud of you!’…and I don’t want to let you down – even though I say that I do.

Find me
At the edge of my path
Take my hand
Help me cross over
The invisible ground
Give me strength, please,
Give me wings

I’m so sorry all of the time I’m so sorry that I can’t do better I’m so sorry that I can’t do more and what a waste! What a waste it is to be sorry all the time…I just want to celebrate…I just want to see what other people see when they see me…I want to know my potential, my possibilities.

Ok, so there is this great story that I have to tell because it’s so great and it makes me smile and laugh at myself. There is this great book called ‘heart of the world’ where these young ambitious guys go exploring in the unexplored parts of Tibet to find magical waterfalls and traveling with them are a strange band of marauders…the most knowledgeable of which is a monk…and at one point in their journey they come across a log and its blocking their way and people are angry and frustrated and they keep throwing themselves at the log and they are trying to crawl over and they keep falling in the mud and they get more and more mad and then the monk tries…and they watch because he is always so happy and they are sure that this log will frustrate him as much as it frustrates them and they watch…as he approaches…he looks at the log, takes a few steps back, and then runs as fast as he can towards the log, trying to throw his lanky body over the top. He hits the log, flies backwards into the direction from which he came and bursts into a fit of laughter…the more he laughs, the more astonished his spectators become…and then he gets up, muddy from head to toe, takes a running start and throws himself at the log again…the log throws him back into the mud, back on his butt, and this time he laughs even harder and louder. After about 10 tries, he manages to flop himself across the this formidable obstacle and he rests for a moment before getting up and continuing on his path with a smile and unbending joy in his heart. His companions, mesmerized and speechless from the display, follow behind him with a newfound appreciation for just how easy it can be, if you let it be, to climb over a log and through the woods.