incense burns in the small chapel with bowls of blessed water at every entrance. holy reverence is palpable - safe - prayers rising to heaven on clouds of fragrant smoke. but do you know us - what we wish for? do you cry rivers and oceans of salty tears for goodness not used or does the one quick tear disappear when you look away? can this be real - symbolism - miracles - the true christ in the hands of the priest - on my tongue? how did black dark nothingness become all this? my brain cannot comprehend nothingness - surely there was a tiny bright light - one small white star - something moving and alive. smoke rises. once there was no fire - no words - no church - no stained glass windows letting in golden light - no color.

as i look at you in the heavy gold cross - represented in a single white piece of dry bread - i struggle with religion. sometimes i think you would shake your head at the notion of being captured in solid gold - quietly standing before us as a neat and meticulously maintained wafer in a glass compartment. i don't feel you that way. i think you wanted to come to us as the dusty, sandal-footed traveler with unkempt hair and unshaven face who touched those we wouldn't touch - tasted fear and longing - felt pangs of hunger in the desert as you prayed for reprieve from the anguish you felt - knowing you would hurt and bleed and die at the hands of the ones you wanted to save. jesus christ - the last great hope for mankind to stop the ugliness and return to love.

i don't know how you wish to come to me but i think it is in living a simple life close to the earth - the fresh bloomed tulip with petals closed to the night - perfection i had no power in creating - to hush and listen to the glorious singing surrounding me - joyful sounds of exuberance and desire to fly and dance and spiral through morning sky - slicing through fat white clouds with faith to trust what lies on the other side. i think you want to come to me in loving my children with no limits, no conditions, no beginning or end - just depth as deep as the heavens and the human heart. i think you want to come to me in the love of my husband, knowing the battle i fight to stay solid and be accountable - having nothing to do with love or soul-bending connection - but with my need to run to solitude and freedom and search the limits of my spirit. you come to me in dog smiles and children's sticky fingers reaching for me - in the moments i call out to you to help me tolerate pain and disillusionment in the eyes of my beautiful cocooned children who are transforming before my eyes. you come to me in hellos and goodbyes - need - desire - joy - hunger for justice - redemption. how can you be placed in such a neat small cubicle? it should be messier - bloody and hanging with sharp edged pointy things and bits of broken hearts and lives and glistening pieces of sun and moon and stained glass windows. you are in all of life - dirty immaculate broken hanging on my lips like words unspoken in the cracks of my shoes the crust in the corners of my eyes the drool on a baby's chin - the cry of ecstasy and birth and grief and the newly risen moon and the last rays of evening sun.

for my husband

i was wearing a blue dress, shimmering with undertones of black and violet - he was in white bucks, red sport coat and khaki pants. i noticed his eyes first - liquid brown doe eyes - the kind that cry easily and can't hide anything - eyes that are hard to look away from.

i'm not sure if i believe in reincarnation but if i did i would be certain we had known each other in another life - maybe many times. how could the feeling of coming home be explained any other way the night we met at the captain's ball onboard the jubilee? i didn't realize how my eyes were always searching - looking beyond what was in front of me for something else - what else? my eyes settled on jim with a startling sense of home and peace and steadiness that held my focus - ended the searching. what causes that kind of heart radar - soul radar - that knows deeply even when your educated rational head doesn't?

coming home isn't a simple thing - it is making a choice to step away from all the rest - to go to a place where all that is hidden is laid bare. it is vulnerability -a place that holds your tired head in the soft light and feeds you security and warm mashed potatoes - braces your life and your aching back with blue velvet cushions and feather beds. home is the place that draws us close and makes us whole - says you can rest in me - then sends us back into the world

knowing all is as it should be.

home was the gift offered in jim's fearless gaze on that june day almost 23 years ago when we were young and beautiful and living had not left so many scars. it was the life offered exactly 21 years ago as i walked slowly down the aisle, with no reservation, to my handsome groom - who is too loud sometimes - voices opinions i often disagree with - forgets to put down the toilet seat - snores every night on the soft pottery barn sectional - encourages me to follow my dreams and unselfishly comes along for the ride - holds me firmly by the collar with a kind voice of reason when i have lost reality and become nothing more than poetry and floating white clouds and the colors of the rainbow ---- my best friend who knows me better than i know myself.

*****************

i had the best turkey sandwich of my life on our wedding night. room service brought it on a silver tray lined with white linen, covered by a grand silver dome. i hid under the covers in the glorious king size bed at the Waldorf - covering my skimpy red and black honeymoon attire. we were starving and we tore into those sandwiches like hungry kids eating hot dogs at a picnic. we hadn't had a lot of time to eat at our wedding - too much fun - people to greet - dancing - laughing with college friends - hugging smiling relatives - basking in the glow of being princess for a day. we had planned every detail of our wedding - from the mediocre band who forgot the lyrics to our wedding song - to the tulips on the table - to the stony hill inn because of the lovely long windows and stone walls that would look so pretty in the pictures. a magical day - but not much time for eating. we giggled and drank champagne all the way to the hotel in the back of the limo - then up to the beautiful room for a shower and a chance to wear my honeymoon attire for just a brief moment ------ then starving. what a feeling of contentment and peace and pure physical bliss at that moment - to consume a big turkey sandwich on homemade bread with lettuce and mayo - crumbs falling over the king size bed and my new husband's chest.

a promise of things to come.

***********

i'm sorry leonard cohen but love is a victory march.

have you ever tried to keep your mouth shut out of kindness

quiet your anger

wash away the green of jealousy with yielding blue sky?

have you reached out without fear

in spite of fear

to let someone else be first

be celebrated

be embraced without faltering

in twisting winds of hurricanes and tornadoes and hot angry breath?

allowed another to rest a broken life against your shoulder

without complaint

even in its unbearable heaviness?

have you forgiven

because you were generous beyond necessity

and love was the only expression that mattered?

love is a noble victory march.

to become selfless in the most selfish of worlds

to see only the loveliness before you

allowing shattered pieces to fall away like broken pottery

swept up and discarded

never missed.

victory, victory

to march through this vile and contaminated world

moments and years lost in

too much talking

too much distraction

too much

and still be offered the simple grace to love and be loved.

hallelujah, hallelujah.

**************

all my love to you, as flawed as it is, to have and to hold,

forever and ever

imagine lying on your back in a hammock under the stars with a soft gray cashmere blanket and a cup of perfectly sweetened chai tea - remembering a life almost finished - hair snow white - reading glasses long ago replaced with thick bifocals - wrinkles deep, but none so bottomless as the laugh lines around the sweet old smiling mouth. imagine the wisdom it took to laugh through a life laced with pain and struggle - sickness and health - joy and loss so big - so endless it almost swallowed you whole - but not quite. imagine how grace took over and taught you to wait - to soften - to accept - to remember small joys great enough to get you through a life. imagine whispered words of love passion what's for dinner i'm sick the sky looks like rain what will we do if he dies if she dies if they leave us if the dog needs surgery if the insurance doesn't cover the bills. imagine the words not said out of kindness - fear - shame - pride - understanding. imagine a life where we can reach the end and still smile more than cry - walk in the sun equally loving the rain - without thought of anything more than -life is an extraordinary gift - a good solid rough-around-the-edges butcher-knife-sharp sweet and salty gift.

************************************************************

my grandmother's white hair hasn't been cut in decades and she wears it pulled into a knot on the back of her head - her 90 year old skin is tan and smooth and spotted with age - her blue eyes twinkle as she smiles at life. you know, she said on our last visit, we may have our losses and our disappointments but life is still beautiful. her back curves from all she has carried - children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and now the great great grandchildren have begun - a life of parties and boyfriends by the dozen in her youth - public work, as she called it, in the shirt factory - a rocky marriage that ended 20 years ago with my grandfather's death - siblings, 6 in all, gone one by one - her beloved son's death before he was ready. losses, solitude she did not choose, suffering, but still she sees beauty. her speckled hands remind me of days long ago when we sat on the porch swing as she braided my hair with hands so strong my eyes sometimes pulled at the corners. other times those hands gently smoothed and cooled my tousled head in the heat of summer. mema never gets hot - never breaks a sweat. her smile has always been present - calm - loving - quiet in the storm. she lives with blackie and penny - her beloved dogs who are also survivors - rescued from hopeless futures. so she cooks for three and penny can't get enough dr. pepper and what would happen if the girls didn't get their snack before bed. she goes to church - reads her bible - cans more tomatoes and corn and pickles than she will ever have time to eat - visits the old people in the nursing home - takes walks in the park in sunny weather - makes quilts and brings homemade pecan pies to every holiday gathering. she has said goodbye to more people than i have ever known, met death and life and god face to face - and still she smiles.

early morning sky, quietly inviting me to a new day - clean - fresh - unblemished with sad regrets - offering everything. just waking from deep sleep - eyes blinking open - breathless anticipation. waiting for the sun - the dictator who says get up get going work accomplish do write shower talk listen feed the dogs vaccuum the floor get some exercise pull the weeds wash the clothes turn on the today show and find out what needs to be worried about today.

but before the sun is the stillness - the call to do nothing but watch and discover the endless new day that will be followed by another and another - world without end.

early morning sky inviting me to create life anew - bravely without fences or borders - without expectations and responsibilities --- open as wide as the sky and deep as the moon - as peaceful as the soft gray and pink of first light. all will be well, it says - it is a new day - filled with opportunities to giggle - forgive - stretch - eat the bounty of green earth - drink in the cool fresh wind - grant freedom to the words leaping from my pen. a beginning, a life to be lived completely in this single day, the whole universe reflected in this one sweet still moment as the birds awaken and call to me to come out to play - forget the chores - forget the news - forget the dirty floor and unmade bed and come outside to dance with the dawn and direct the chorus of birdsong - to watch the day begin to live.

i'm desperate for color - long sweeps of sky blue washing into deep ocean water and sunshine, aqua and turquoise like the rings made by the pueblos, brilliant fiery orange the color of sunset or pink that appears before the dawn. i've been living too long with oatmeal and angel's gate, creamy neutral and colors that don't clash. i love vanilla, but it gets sweet and unconfrontational and white and safe. i crave a burst of watermelon juice and lime sorbet - raspberry straight from the vine - warm orange and yellow peppers with a layer of dust on their skin. I need light and juice and flavor - delicious from morning till night - reflecting the daylight with streaks and shimmers of sunglass-wearing brightness and warm evening richness. i write so much about childhood when i loved climbing trees and picking plump red cherries and rolling downhill forever on the grass - when sunshine was a call to live and live and live some more, not in my head, but in my senses - in the feel of the dew on my bare feet in the early morning - the soft, sweet and slick coat of a newborn puppy - the asphalt on the palms of my hands when i fell off my bike. exploring in the woods and the dark shade of the forest, bright green moss alive on the dead trees, soft and fairy-like in its delicate perfection. the feel of the grapevine held securely in my dirty-finger nailed hands, just before taking off - stepping from the ledge - no fear of falling - only the exhilaration of flying free - soaring groundless for a brief moment. then i lived in taste and touch and free expression of every joy - tears flowing unrestrained when the mini-bike crashed and the blister covered half my small leg. tears and heartbreak unchecked when our puppy - who had not yet had the chance to grow up - chased a car and slid under the wheel and died before my eyes while daddy grilled hamburgers and my heart broke apart with sadness. i'll get you another puppy the man said. he must have had no children - or maybe no heart. eat your supper kids my parents said as tears slipped down their cheeks before they had the chance to wipe them away and be strong for us. i lived out loud then - wild child - feeling everything, just on the surface and also deeper - laughing and touching and hugging and running like an animal - thinking only enough to get me from one experience to another. when did i stop sensing and living in my physical body? when did the relentless mind take over, analyzing, contemplating, studying the possibilities but never acting on them because of fear? laziness? because i had to stop jumping in puddles and searching for the pot of gold and instead put on pantyhose and pumps and try to remember to keep my elbows off the table. i am a mother after all - have to be responsible - a good example - teach my children to be careful and thorough and do all their homework and open the door for the teacher. i have also taught them to explore, to laugh out loud at life when they might want to cry - to love themselves in all their raw imperfection. but have i taught them to be free - to throw caution to the wind so they can live extremely - completely - never missing a single baby bird peeking over the nest or a patch of violets springing from the dirt, oblivious to anything but life and joy and laughter?

i awoke with words spilling from my mind - dropping onto my pillow and down the shower drain. i couldn't stop long enough to catch them before they sailed away on the little boat down the blue and rocky stream. i wanted to get to meditation on time - finish the shower - make the bed - start the laundry - so i could go back and capture the words i lost in the routine. i want to break free and throw it all down when the words begin to spill - channel each syllable onto my paper like children put to bed and tucked in. the words overflow because the life hasn't been fully lived - the feelings not fully felt - so they are buried deep - sealed tightly - protected from spoilage. now they are finding a voice - rising to the surface - long forgotten memories as clear as the coffee cup in front of me. whole scenarios remembered and felt as if they happened yesterday or in last night's dreams. why do i only remember summer from my childhood? rarely do thoughts of winter and darkness and fear arise, though they were real and present in my little girl years. is a memory hidden - veiled behind the idyllic summertime recollections of childhood that may only be dreams? perhaps not - perhaps i am not ready to be broken open - piercing shards too embedded to break free. i will not force them. my dreams have stopped in taos and i wonder if it is because i am writing them all down on paper with my little red pen and now they are my reality. i wonder if someday the nightmares will come and i will not sleep and the shards will come out bloody and dripping - words spilling over and leaking down my chin - dropping off my fingertips and puddling around me like i'm melting.