Dear Reader,
From a hot, humid day
stalked
by an evening storm:
I've been figuring out how to discuss the tough stuff without unintentionally harming or alarming anyone who might stumble upon this letter.
So. A new category entitled trigger warning has been assigned within the blog.
Contained is spicy material.
Potentially triggering material.
The thoughts we decidedly put aside for contemplative evenings during quiet mornings
aeffecacy
sup.
I'm 35 and just realizing what a crazy state I've been living in. Overly excitable. Unnecessarily chatty. High peaks with equally low valleys. A realization that kind of feels like a stone to the dome.
What's so shocking?
How much stress and static I was willing to label as 'tolerable.' How many pivotal, developmental skills were never attained as a younger person. How easy it is to slip by. How far I've already come heading home. How obvious a choice it is to act from within versus reflecting another's behavior- but how far away obvious has felt.
What else feels far away?
Less my dude. Much less. It's as though this realization has led to a general reining in process. A gathering.
You're in direct communication with the mouth of your Beast then.
I like to think I never met Eve Ensler. Just V. Friends would rave at how much seeing and being involved with The Vagina Monologues, written in 1996, affected them. Helped them and healed them. The play's production still has not crossed my path, but creator V. has.
As a flight of six different, 3 oz. cups
holding pastel colored,
electric puddings to taste of-
V.'s 2019 TEDWomen talk about the profound power of an authentic apology. The talk includes difficult autobiographical accounts of being sexually abused by a close perpetrator as a child.
But also discusses how to move on from Earth shattering trauma.
Something unavoidable to us all, just the news,
and it roots.
V. plants a seed
as she speaks
that is
the difference between
calling each other out
and
calling each other in
The talk is a kind of call to men.
I'm sharing it as a call to everyone:
The Beast I am communicating with is PTSD.
It feels more in the wake everyday.
V. compares scars to portals
As a visual thinker,
this piqued me.
A scar is not something to move with,
but move through.
Maybe the only way forward is through.
May(be) you move with Grace-
With the friction of hands against worn leather,
As you,
