I Have Forgotten

The sound of your laugh.

I cried on the way home from my meeting.

Listening to French House Music that is not supposed to make me sad.

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

You could see how that did not actually work out so well for me.

A crow landed on the porch at work today.

It sat bobbing on the thin railing staring into the patio glass doors.

Looking at me.

I was bent over picking up toys from the floor.

Matchbox cars.

Legos.

A stray ribbon from a dolls tousled red hair.

The crow looked at me.

I told him to tell you to come for me.

I know.

Fairytale stuff.

But I did it anyway.

I have forgotten the sound of your laugh.

Do you know how destroyed that makes me feel?

I have been in pain.

I am in pain.

It is all just pain.

The sunset.

You.

The moonrise.

You.

The sea swell and waves rolling into the beach.

All you.

I wrote you a letter yesterday.

I forgot to write you poetry since we have gone our ways.

Separate and apart.

But not really parted.

I realized that I had not as it was so hard, so painful.

I have ghost images of words and fragments of feelings that tell me what the poems might have been about.

You may hazard a guess.

They were sad poems.

My imaginary epistles to you.

I can’t remember how you laugh.

I can see it, I can see your smile, but I can’t hear you.

All I hear is the sound of my own sobbing in the crook of my elbow.

Head bent over the table I am writing at.

I had not thought about losing your voice.

I have pictures of you.

I look once in a while.

Until I start to cry.

Then I stop.

The picture of us in front of the fire in D.C.

Still it haunts my computer.

Still.

Pops up whenever I connect my phone to my computer.

Your face.

Mine in silhouette.

Your arm around me.

Why did I have to lose your laugh today?

Why?

I have lost so much already.

This is not a poem.

This is not a cry for help.

This is just me sad and alone crying into my hands.

While fire races up my side and burns me from the inside out.

I lost your laugh today.

I will never be the same again.

Never.

Again.

Like A Kid Again

I have no idea how, but I suspect a mix of ego and curiosity, led me to being talked into giving my five-year old lady bug charge a lesson in turning cartwheels a half hour before I had to leave for my internship.

I was not dressed for cartwheels.

I was dressed, am dressed still, to play at being a therapist.

Not that it was really playful, man the session I did tonight was a doozy.

But.

I got into the spirit of doing it.

The mom asked me if I knew how to do cartwheels and I said yes and the next thing you know we’re all tramping down to the back yard to have a lesson.

I wasn’t even nervous.

I was actually a touch excited.

Could I still do a cart-wheel?

It turns out I can!

And I did a great cart-wheel.

Fuck, I impressed myself.

I landed much softer than I thought and it was thoughtless, effortless, easy, I just did it.

I had to break down the steps of it to the young lady, who tried valiantly and ended up hitting her head.

Then her knee.

Then her other knee.

I had a heap of five-year old in my lap for a few minutes crying.

But.

She’s resilient, children really are, and she got back up and asked that I show her again and I did and then I did a round off for fun and then a few more.

My arm pits starting sweating a little and I got quite warmed up.

It felt really fun.

Good to be in my body.

And also, sweet and silly and goofy.

I asked the mom to make sure that she didn’t tell any of my therapy clients that I was busy turning cartwheels in her back yard before my session.

We both giggled.

It was cute.

I don’t know why  it tickled me so much, but it was a very sweet moment to share with the family.

And I like that I was willing to take a risk and try something I haven’t done in years, that I was willing to fall on my ass.

Turns out I didn’t.

Turns out I still have a pretty damn good cart-wheel.

Not bad for a 45-year-old woman.

I mean.

I’ll take it.

I remember really well teaching myself how to do one.

I was in kindergarten, five years, maybe six years old.

I was very determined and I taught myself in the span of an afternoon in the back yard of my Aunt Teresa’s duplex that my mom and me and my sister were staying at until we were back on our feet.

I think that we lived off and on with this particular aunt a few times.

I know both my aunt and my mom were separated and/or divorcing from their husbands.

We had lived with my aunt for a little while in Columbus and then again on the North East side of Madison before moving into some section 8 housing that my mom finally got approved for.

It was a tough time at my aunt’s, when I look at it with perspective, there weren’t enough rooms for all of us and I had my “room” in the basement.

It was dark.

It was full of spiders.

And I didn’t like it at all.

But I taught myself to steel myself to the darkness and make myself sleep and when I think about it I’m surprised I was able to do so, but like I said, children are resilient, they can get used to a lot of things.

I spent most of my time outside while we lived with my aunt.

I spent a lot of time in the woods, I spent a lot of time wandering around the nearby farms and the outlying housing developments that had not been built yet, but just had the streets with empty lots waiting for the houses to be built.

It was on the very edge of what was Madison.

It was farmland across the street one block over and woods, granted not a huge forest, but a big woods none the less, on the other side of the foot path that I walked to school.

I loved those woods, spent a lot of time playing imaginary games in them and looking for jack in the pulpits and climbing trees.

Although I also sensed there were places in the woods that weren’t safe, I can almost now feel a certain kind of darkness or heaviness in between the thickets of trees in some spots that I recall quite ardently avoiding going into.

But I was quite happy on the edges, near the prairie grass meadow that flanked one side of it and the abandoned farm just over the top of the hill.

The farm that I liked to explore.

Including the silo.

I climbed up it once.

I was six?

I climbed the rungs on the outside, all the way to the top, I let go at the top and almost fell, startled by birds, pigeons I think, that flew out as I peeked in over the top.

I lost my mittens.

They were red yarn mittens.

My mom was miffed.

I couldn’t tell her that they had fallen into the top of a tree.

That was how high up I was.

My mittens fell from my pockets when I startled back and landed on a tree below me.

I was an adventurous child.

I was also not monitored very heavily.

Some would say that was neglect.

Heck, I would probably too, looking back.

But at the time I was free and happy to be free, wild, a child in the woods, the grass, collecting leaves, laying on the hill, looking at clouds, walking to the horse farm down the road and letting myself into the stables to pet the horses.

I was feral.

Now that I think about it.

A wild little thing.

With ambitions.

I really wanted to be in gymnastics.

Not just out in the hinterlands, and I’m not sure where I got the idea, maybe from watching other little girls at school, but my mother made it crystal clear that there was not money for that sort of thing.

There never would be either.

But that’s another story for another time.

So.

I taught myself.

I watched and learned and spent those hours that summer, turning cart-wheel after cart-wheel in the high backyard grass that was full of dandelions.

By the time they had turned from yellow gold saffron to balls of white cottony fluff, I could do perfect cartwheels, text-book.

Then I taught myself how to do them one-handed, and yes, once or twice I did them no handed, but that was hard and I didn’t always have the courage, and then I taught myself how to do round offs.

Never flips though, they alluded me.

And today, forty years later, give or take a month, I was doing cartwheels with a five-year old girl in the setting sun and laughing like I was five years old myself.

It was a pretty happy way to end my week.

Cartwheels.

And.

Laughter.

In the golden light of Friday.

Over The Annoyance

But it stuck for a moment.

I got the last-minute, as I was opening the door to leave for my internship, request from the mom to come in early tomorrow morning.

I didn’t want to come in early.

And.

I couldn’t say no.

I had to cancel a chiropractor appointment, which blows and I’m still unhappy about, my back was bothering me today, is bothering me now, and I could have really used the work.

Especially since I’ll be on an overnight red-eye to D.C. Thursday night.

However.

The annoyance passed once I was in session with my client.

And by the time I had wrapped with my second client I was completely past it.

Oh.

I suppose I’m still inconvenienced, it would have been a good thing to have my back adjusted, but ultimately I won’t be getting up earlier than I would have had I just gone tot the appointment.

Granted I won’t be doing much of my morning routine at the house.

I’ll be getting up at 6:30 a.m. and just getting ready to go straight to work.

I’m going to skip coffee and breakfast at home and have it at the house.

Gratefully I will only have the baby in the morning and hopefully he’ll do a double nap day.

And even if he doesn’t I will be happy to be one day closer to leaving for the East Coast.

I don’t know how much more eager I can be for my trip.

I am so ready to fly the coop.

Today seemed to utterly drag and I think that may have also played into the annoyance at being asked to come in early.

It doesn’t always happen that I go in early on Wednesdays, but it’s beginning to be a little more and more of a habit for the parents to ask.

I don’t like working a ten-hour nanny shift.

It’s too draining.

And when I add into it that I haven’t had a day off, since I was in school all weekend, for a week and a half, working a ten-hour day when I was expecting an 8 hour day is not at all appealing.

Then again.

Few more bucks in my wallet for travel spending.

That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

Oh well.

I’ll be tired tomorrow, but I will have a good day.

As it will be one day closer to my vacation.

I am so ready for the time off.

I am so looking forward to it.

It will probably go by quickly and I will wonder how the time flew by when I fly out on Sunday.

Today the mom was talking to me about plans for next week and I couldn’t bear to think about it.

I don’t want to think about next week at all.

I just want to think about this week, this weekend, this travel.

Fuck next week.

Don’t even talk to me about it.

Next week will be taxes and homework and getting my application together for my PhD program.

This weekend.

Well.

Suffice to say.

There will be no homework.

There will be no clients.

There will be no group supervision.

There will only be me and my best friend and time to do all the things that we have been talking about doing like a couple of giddy teenagers.

On the phone for hours, making plans, hatching ideas, giggling.

Well.

I giggle.

Laughing and free and happy to get to see each other.

It is such a gift.

I am so grateful that I booked this ticket, made this plan.

Especially since I didn’t really do any trip this past semester, I try to let myself have a trip right after the semester ends to dangle a little carrot to get me through.

This carrot was delayed a few months.

I’m happy I finally get to have a nibble on it.

I do also plan to do some travel after I graduate in May.

I’m just not quite sure what that looks like yet.

I have to wait for my employers to figure out what they are going to be doing as far as travel goes.

My plans hinge on theirs as there is the off-chance that I may travel with them for some part of their vacation.

My friend in Paris has also alerted me that she and her husband will be traveling to a wedding July 21st, so that I should not book around that time.

Of course, that feels like the time when my employers will be over in Europe, but I’ll just have to wait and see what comes up.

I also still have a ticket voucher to use up.

I couldn’t get the travel dates that worked for my friend via the airlines that I had the voucher for and just said fuck it and bought the ticket.

I know I should have consulted my friend, but man, I was just too excited by the prospect to not buy the ticket.

I’m so glad I did.

It will be epic.

But, yes I do have a $485 flight voucher to use up by October 15th.

There is travel in my future after D.C.

Grateful for that too.

But first.

D.C.

Oh baby.

I am so ready.

So.

So.

So.

Ready.

Seriously.

Crazy Thinking About You

Crazy the things we do.

The nuances of you.

Shimmer shine.

The way my face has changed because of you.

I can’t get enough of you.

You take me places I never knew existed and promise me more.

I feel full of star shine, moon shine, shine, shine, shine.

The way you shine at me.

Makes me feel full of bubbles, full of laughter.

It spills out of me.

Falling on the floor.

Bouncing and alive with joy.

So, so good.

I cannot ignore you.

I would not choose to.

I would have to ignore what I have become.

And I cannot.

I have changed.

I have become more myself.

I understand it now.

Completed me you did not, complimented me, perhaps.

Subsumed me and made me something new, something different.

Wonderous and alive and more fully myself.

You saw me.

And in the seeing I saw me and I became more.

More alive.

More in love.

Constantly graced in that space that is you.

Your face framed by my hands in the misty light of sunshine drifting through the

Bamboo shade and the tendrils of sea fog, a muffled light that made you more beautiful.

Catching my breath and holding your face between my palms I made myself memorize

Your face, your eyes, the romantic filter so fitting it was almost verbose in love imagery.

Suffocating in beauty.

Thralled and smashed with you and all you bring me.

Burned down.

Built back up.

I could sing forests alive and flowers to bloom.

I could dance the moon from the sky for you.

I blossom with the magic that is you and wonder at my own reflection in the mirror.

Who is this woman?

Shimmering with happiness.

Radiant in love.

Incandescent for you.

The sun shone on your face and I basked in its reflection.

For it loved you as I love you, illuminating all that is bright and dark.

Gilding you with gold.

Glister.

Glam.

Glow.

All of you.

So bright.

I see that in my face.

That light that is you, shone on me.

And now I shine with that same light.

I am.

Aglow.

Because of you.

And.

All that light.

Yes.

All of it.

Is.

For.

You.

It Took Almost

Eleven years.

But holy shit.

It happened.

I finally felt comfortable in the room.

There’s a room I found myself in about eleven years and 10 days ago.

I was profoundly uncomfortable.

I am not sure how the hell I stayed the whole hour.

I did, though.

And I kept coming back.

Even when my ass was falling off.

Even when I looked like hell.

Even when my best friend was dying in a hospital just down the road.

I laughed there.

I smoked a lot of cigarettes there, at least for a few months, the smoking ceased, the going there did not.

I felt not enough too often to recount.

I felt less then just about as often.

I was never a cool kid, I was never going to be a cool kid.

I don’t know that I was a cool kid tonight.

I’m too old to be a cool kid, but I tell you what, I felt fine.

I felt good.

I felt even and at peace and nothing was lacking or wrong in my life.

I was finally comfortable in that folding chair, underneath those ceiling fans.

I saw men I had crushes on.

Men who I had asked out on dates and was told no, thanks, or worse.

No response at all.

I saw a man  I had made out with the night the Giants won the last world series.

I saw women I hadn’t seen in years.

I got hugs and gave hugs.

I felt good to be the exact person I am today, strong, happy, secure, loved.

I laughed with a friend on the way home.

And marveled at my life.

I mean, I truly marveled.

I have come so far, so fucking far, it constantly blows my mind and when I think, “think,” things are not going my way or it could, should, or ought to be better, when I think, “I’ll be happy when…”

I know I am on the wrong track, off on the wrong foot, going in the wrong direction on the one way street.

I was riding my bicycle earlier today, heading into work, swooping along the paths on the Pan Handle and I was thinking about New York.

I was thinking about Paris.

I was thinking about what I want.

I was thinking about me.

I was telling God how it should be.

I was telling God how I wanted it to go down next.

Then I laughed the fuck out loud.

Who the hell was I to tell God what to do?

Who was I to complain that I wasn’t being loved the way that I thought I should be?

Hahahahaha.

Oh my God.

What a fool I am.

I made the decision right then and there to love and not be loved, as it says in this nice little prayer I read every morning, that I say, that I try to carry out the door with me into the wide world.

Although.

As it can be seen as evidenced above, I only made it a few miles down the road before I was telling God specifically what kind of love I deserved.

“Carmen, I love you, will you marry me,” my little five year old charge said to me tonight.

“You’re a little young for me,” I said and smiled.

“What if I was 51?” He said, dipping his buttered toast into a bowl of warm broccoli soup I had made.

“Can I have another bowl of soup?” He asked, mopping up the last of the bowl with the crust of bread.

“Of course,” I said and swooped in, picking up his bowl, kissing his head, ruffling the hair there.

“Well?  What if I was 51?” He asked me again as I set a fresh bowl of soup in front of him.

I already had the next piece of bread toasting in the oven.

“51 might be a little too old,” I said with a smile, and sipped my tea.

“What if I was your age!” He said, bright eyed, then, he smiled, “and a little taller?”

I laughed out loud.

“Why then of course! Yes, love, I would marry you.”

“Will we have kids?”

Oh my.

Ha.

I am loved.

Over and above and beyond what I deserve.

Love.

Everywhere.

A friend texting me to give me a lift home.

A friend texting to ask me out to a movie.

A hug.

A kiss.

A three year old, “Carmen, CARMEN, CARMEN!”

“Yes?”

“I love you!” Sotto voce.

Oh, my darling, I love you too.

I have so much love.

I prayed from my knees the other night.

(every night, every morning)

By my bedside and thanked my God for knowing the depth of love that I have gotten to know.

To find beauty and grace and above, gratitude, for a difficult situation and to realize that the experience has lead me to a greater depth of love, to know more love, to have a bigger bandwidth for love, that it does not matter that it was hard to go through, look at the amount of love I got to know by going through it.

Astounding.

And I don’t know if I loved as hard as I could today.

(I love pretty hard)

And I don’t know if I could have done it better or differently.

I feel like I did a pretty good job.

And I don’t know if I would have done any of it any other way but the way that I did it today.

I do know this.

I feel good.

I feel centered.

I feel enough.

I am loved.

I am lovable.

I am worthy of love.

The hubris of having humility is that I cannot say I have humility, I don’t, let’s be real, but I can recognize that I did not feel less than tonight.

I felt equal.

I felt apart of.

I felt like I belonged and.

Best of all.

I didn’t feel like I needed to change to make anyone happy.

I was.

I am.

Perfectly content.

To be the exact version of Carmen I am today.

I rock.

Let’s be frank.

Haha.

Nah.

I am not a rock star.

But I am a star in my own little way, a bit of old light from a source so far outside myself that I cannot fathom the power of it, a reflection of a love so big and grand and in-exhaustive that I know, without a doubt, that I am just exactly where I am supposed to be.

Raw.

Vulnerable.

Open.

And when I think I need it some other way, I just get to remind myself.

“Love, rather than be loved.”

Love.

Love.

Just.

Love.