My skin smells like yours

Though we haven’t touched in months

Your aura rubs off

This is a story in 2 parts. And I love my mom and I know she loves me. But.

Part 1

I wanted some boots. Some kick ass black boots. I have been looking for the perfect boots for a couple of years now. Since the weather is finally cooling off, and my toes were freezing in my sandals, I decided it was time to go on the boot hunt again. I was telling my mom about it. (Dramatic pause. Will pick up here in a second.)

Part 2

Well, you kinda know this part. I’m a big girl. Curvy, plump, bbw, call it what you will. And I have been curvy or plump or call-it-what-you-will since about, oh, second grade. And yes, being overweight has affected my life, not always in a good way, not always in a bad way.  But one very definite way has been my personal sense of style. I tend towards dark colors and classic designs and nothing striped or too bright or too trendy (although low cut seems to do ok for me). I get trendy with purses and hair and shoes, but not clothes.  And having been this way my whole life, basically, my mom was always trying to get me to lose weight.  She was always dangling trendy clothes in front of me as the carrot to get me to…eat more carrots.  Her starting line, leading into one of these conversations was always “When we get skinny, we’re gonna get…”

Tying it together

So I am telling my mom how I need to find some boots. And she said “I saw some really cute boots at DSW the other day. They were red.”

Me: I just want black, maybe brown.

Mom: Yeah, well, when we get skinny, we can get our boots.

And I think my head spun around a little. And I saw red. And I almost passed out from the sheer force of memory.

I haven’t heard those words in years; in fact, I had forgotten all about the whole “when we get skinny” thing.

I have spent my adult life growing comfortable in my skin. Making peace with my body. Knowing I could be doing more to be healthy but being at the place where I take responsibility and am realistic – I have PCOS and I do the best I can. Every few months I get serious and lose a little weight and as long as I maintain that, well, I’m pretty much ok with it. Honestly, if it bothered me that much I would DO something about it, more than I do.

So when my mom was encouraging me to delay getting something I wanted until a time when I would be “skinny” and would therefore “deserve” it, I was shocked back into childhood, back into an uncomfortable adolescence, back to worrying about the outside and not the inside, the surface and not the substance.

And honestly, that is so not who I am these days.  I was really shocked at the strength of my reaction to her words and her sentiment – that unless you are skinny, you don’t deserve new boots.

Really?

Because I went boot shopping at lunch yesterday, and I found some high heeled, knee-high black leather boots – they are sexy to death and they make me feel hot as hell- and I bought them.

And I totally fucking deserve them!

It is cold outside

Cold makes me crave coffee, soup

Food and drinks that warm.

***

Home alone again

Extra blanket on my bed

Wishing for your warmth

***

Sometimes on Sundays

I want to steam up windows

And I miss your heat.

***

Steam curls around us

Your touch makes my skin sparkle

Your gaze makes me melt

***

It will always be
the color I turn to when
I am most like me.

The words I want to describe me:

Strong

Healthy

Whole

Fit

Athletic

Normal

Beautiful

Stunning

Spiritual

Kind

Helpful

Healing

Astounding

Wise

Hot

Desirable

Luscious

Curvy

Loving

Loved

Talented

Gifted

Giving

Fulfilled

Smart

Together

Mother Love

Light

Passisonate

Successful

Published

Vessel

Did I mention -

Hot?

Athletic?

Strong?

Healthy?

And also.

Hot.

I like how, when you’re around,

I don’t have to

keep  my guard up.

You already know what I want

and need

and I don’t have to pretend to be something

I’m not

or try to be something

I should be.

I don’t expect anything more

than  you are willing to give me

and you allow me  the same grace.

I can leave my heart

wide open

and I know you will take care of it

I can  put my depravity right on the table

and it doesn’t scare you away.

There is no need for coyness or subterfuge between us,

there is no doubt

and there is no question

and there are no knotted and unnavigable paths

from here to there and back again and

I’m grateful to you

that I only have to tell you once

I am sorry

for having forgotten.

I have started new poems and then realized I have already said everything there is to say. I have asked, begged, pleaded, cajoled, seduced, flirted, and cried. I have been weak and I have been strong. I have been good and I have been bad. I have walked right up to the edge of it, and I have turned my back and walked away. I have reminisced, I have dreamed of the future. I have said the right things and the wrong things and I have allowed and denied my feelings. I have let you in, I have shut you out, I have been everything and I have been nothing. I played by rules I didn’t understand, rules you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, articulate. In the black on the page I read one thing, while in the white you were saying something completely different.

In a tangle of words I was fooled.
In the deafening silence, the truth, the truth.

So, I started on a pretty significant and sacred journey today.  I am learning Reiki, the traditional Japanese practice of using energy to heal and balance the body and mind.

I know. Sounds a little out there.

But it works – I have my daughter as proof.I had been trying to get pregnant for 7 years. I had fertility treatments, fertility drugs, invasive procedures, and devastating diagnoses. What I hadn’t had was reiki.  Then these two hippies, Larry and Nancy, showed up at the agency where I worked and offered to do Reiki on our HIV positive clients.

Out clients were…skeptical…at best. So I, knowing nothing at all about Reiki, climbed up on a table and listened as Larry and Nancy explained what they were doing and, well, it just worked.  It wasn’t weird or kooky.  It was relaxing and affirming and it worked. I felt wonderful – and less than a month later, I was knocked up.  It was a miracle.

And now, I am learning how to help other people with this amazing healing energy. As one good friend put it,

anything that we can do these days to relax has to be a good thing…if the energy is around us, then the energy is there to be used…

besides, if the miracles in the Bible happened through people as described, then the energy had to come from somewhere…if these people were channeling God’s power, then why shouldn’t anyone else…

So today I received my first attunement and now I will be practicing several different modalities (self-healing, distance healing, karmic band cleansing, home/room cleansing, situational/quality healing).  If you want some Reiki from a beginning student, comment or email me.

We will never fully disappear

from one another.

This impossible love

will never completely

dissipate,

will never be wholly, (holy) diminished,

will never

let go,

once

and

for all.

Your love is

a watermark

across my whole life;

a ghost image

in the picture I keep

of what love looks like;

an orb, a bright shining light

I will always be subtly drawn to,

a secret, small  smile

my children ask me about.

The dawn comes later-

Sunlight strains against the blinds,

Leaks in, warms my face

***

The welcome breeze blows

Its beginning, summer’s warmth

Autumn chills the end.