Current mood:
content
klo's Blog
-
still three steps ahead
-
street corner symphony
Current mood:
there are some women you meet that will make you still. you look upon their face and their circumstances, and you catch an unmistakeable piece of you, reflected back.
crushed
it could be a glance, a style, a way, or a little, almost indiscrete mannerism . . .it could be an outlook on life, a personal philosophy, a preference for platforms over flats, or just the way she takes her tea. these little things that capture your attention in that half second can immediately connect you to this person in a way that neither time nor what comes after has an ability to change.
for me, joan whaley is one of these women.
she's a beautiful soul inside and out. a mature creature that despite many years, many disappointments and many more surprises than one would ever bargin for, she has held fast to art of femine wiles, to laughter as a cure for just about anything, and the power of antioxidants. i know this woman to love what she does (she's a healthcare architect), to find beauty in the way a building is constructed and the way that little turns here and little touches there can help someone heal, or keep someone well. she is a huge advocate for stones and centered breathing, perfers her martinis dirty (and always has), and has an incurable sense of taste and refinement. i will infact never forget our first conversation about silver rings and how lines of a lady's fingers can become extensions of her frame and of her presence. From that moment i found out she was a fellow fan of all things grace, audrey, and katherine and i could always count on her to leave me in side-splitting tears when i needed it. no matter the hour. and no matter the deadline that loomed before us.
three months ago she was dating a hot firefighter she found separated from his engine (who she wasn't sure if she should keep), was lauding me with woes at my absence (saying proposal meetings just aren't the same without my "pretty little face around") and begged me to come down for girl's spa day (whenever I could work it into my busy, busy schedule).
so last friday, on a whim, i dropped her a line to say just say hi. she had popped into my mind and i didn't know why. i wanted to see what she was up to and catch up on all the trouble she was no doubt causing . . .
and then yesterday the phone rang. it wasn't joan. it was lisa. she called to tell me that joan had passed away in her sleep. sometime sunday night.
i felt in that one moment my chest so tight i could hardly breathe.
it was cancer again. what had started in her breasts years ago had found it's way to the liver.
had someone turned up the heat or was that just me?
they said she didn't even know wht was happening. she was sleeping. she went peacefully.
my desk phone started to ring. someone called my name. our boss was looking for me. something about a deadline a document that was due yesterday.
did it matter if it was peacefully? she was still gone.
more hollering. the printer wont work. someone asking me to look at a document. someone else kicking the copier.
shit, i thought. i'm loosing them too fast. these friends of mine who matter.
i hung up with lisa
(no time to grieve right then)
walked over to the copier and hit go
dropped the document that was due on my bosses' desks
and i thought about the fact that joan was working the day before she left. she worked on weekends to make up for chemo days during the week. one minute she's sending testy emails about her schedule, fielding off her employer's threats to drop her to part time status (and stop her health insurance and chemo all together) and the next her schedule woes have been handled.
i let the voicemail pick up the phone, i walked out of the building ignoring the colleague yelling my name and thought about living and dying for half a century out on a street corner. i thought about fighting cancer without a support group--no kids, no husband, and no family. i thought about what i would be wanting to do the day before i went. and if it's not what i'm doing now, then how do i change it? how do i make the little time we get matter.
and then out on that street corner i realized that i'm now at that age, where i am loosing people i love on a regular basis.
shit. shit. shit. shit. -
fathers
There are few people who impact a woman quite like her father.
Present, loving, patient and kind he can give her the gifts of voice, self-respect, knowledge of self, and unconditional love.
Absent, disappointing, hurtful, or angry and he can set her up for a life of repeat performances by a parade of men all while she searches for that thing she knows is supposed to exist but remains illusive and punishing all the same.
So my question to the women of the world is what do we do when our fathers are the later? Do we live forever the hostage of their history? Or do we write our lives as we wish to see them without the example of what such stories are made of? Say we lie awake, burdened with knowledge that we weren't given the right shake, and that more awaits, but then how to create a way out? How to know that which we are lacking? How to dream for more than we dare believe we are possible of possessing?
I ask because here is how I see the problem; without a clear conception of what we are worth, or even the knowledge of our own capacity to be light, how do we dare come to believe that we are worth more? What gives us the permission, or even the hint of a future filled with love and laughter such that we've never known the likes of? And say by some miracle of sorts we find that we deserve more—that we are more . . . what then? How then do we strike upon the task of creating, crafting and concocting the missing components that will someday make us whole? -
ghosts
Current mood:
one of those nights.
loved
the kind that creeps up every so often,
long after you are convinced,
the danger has passed,
and you'll never ever have another,
at least not on your own terms or without fair warning.
but then that's the thing about grief.
she's the ultimate equalizer.
you can't out run, out smart, or out manuever her.
she doesn't care who you are, how strong you think you are, what you've been through before, or that tomorrow is a work day and you really need a good night's rest.
she's persistent that way.
unrelenting.
not uncaring, or purposely unkind, but just unflinchingly fair.
in the most inconveninet and consistent of ways.
sometimes you see her coming.
there is a warning in the wind, in your mood -
you wake up with a sense that she's hovering about,
aiming to make an appearance.
and other days,
she creeps up,
uninvited,
unwanted,
and insistent none the less.
i didn't see her coming this time.
though my melancholy should have alerted to this much.
but there was nothing special in the skies,
no harsh winds, biting breezes or mean colors painted across the horizon.
no trigger moments,
nostalgic finds,
old memories wrapped in familiar faces,
or favorite songs floating back over innocent airwaves.
nothing to poke, prod, tease or torture.
there was no test of wills this time.
my strength against hers.
it just happened.
the moment my head hit the pillow,
i knew it was too late.
i felt him for one.
i always do.
i can't see him--not in dreams, not in scenes, or faded memories--
even when i try . . .
but i do feel him,
in waves, in rhythyms, in energies so forcefully dispatched,
wth the same presence and purpose by which he'd command a room,
that signature of his to this day remains true,
so i knew it, rihg then, when he entered and even of why he had come.
i knew he knew, that i missed him.
that i had been missing him,
but had just not said anything and had just not been acknowledging the void because i didn't want to fall away to the tears, or to the fear of not being able to come back once i went there, or to the excruitiating lonliness and despair . . .
i didn't want to go there and so i thought i could stop it.
by just ignoring it.
by just pretending it wasn't so,
even though it never worked like that before,
but no matter,
because he knows,
he knows me better then that.
he always did.
and so he had come,
waiting until i was to lay my head down,
close my eyes,
and fade off to sleep,
then so quietly his spirit did floated to me through the pane,
to lay down beside me,
to wrap his warm arms around me,
to hold my frame together like pieces of mended glass,
and to pull me close.
to remind me both of his promise,
and of his absence,
and of him.
and then with no where else to run.
sides drawn,
and the game called---
the tears fell.
one by one.
silent this time
no outward screams,
or fearful gasps.
just the silent,
all-knowing,
fully-aware,
willing acceptance
of exhaustion
and tears.
of love,
of light,
and of loss.
hey i was browsing through blogs on my PSP i got for FREE and found yours, i agree with what you said, thanks for writing this blog, since i found your blog using the Free PSP i got, i thought id let you know that you can go here and also get a FREE PSP, enjoy, send me a message from it when you get it k?