LYONMOM. I am mother. Hear me roar.

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Connections

I wonder how many people you truly connect with, excluding family, over the course of a lifetime. When I was young the connections seemed to come more easily. It felt like I was gliding through my life pouring into the hearts and souls of passerby with a heart that was truly open and with eyes that could scan a vast landscape like an animal, honing in, in an instant, on friend or foe with impeccable accuracy, breaking down the barriers of time and space. Sadly, the energy lately has trickled rather than gushed, reminiscent of these last drops of breast milk sucked furiously into the mouth of my now-almost-five month child. I feel like I am drying up. I am moving through life with intermittent vision, as if I am only able to see when lightning strikes in a storm and then am thrust back into the darkness again. Sure, I have conversations I enjoy, exchange meaningful looks here and there, but I it has been a long while since I have truly connected with someone new on an intimate, soul-filled level. Perhaps it was easier when I was young and also shared sexual connections with people, or at least flirting, physical ones. Now I long to connect with others with Juan Pablo (and Emilio and Lyla) as a couple, as a family, and perhaps that is just inherently more difficult than glomming onto someone physically and riding the big waves, hanging on for dear life.

But also it was easier to connect with other people on a more passionate level when I enjoyed a more intimate connection with myself, primarily through writing. It has been so long since I was, as I am now, sitting at a coffee shop, writing just for the sake of getting out some of the words stuck in my throat. And I can only think of myself as a writer for so long, without writing, before it becomes clear that I am not, in fact, a writer. A writer writes. It does not matter what I write, only that I am writing. I yearn for the process, not so much the end result. I have always connected with my truest self through the use of words, transcribing these waves of sentiment into sentences that find each other like scattered pebbles on the beach. Like lost souls shot through the atmosphere, soaring through infinite space and slowly over the course of centuries fusing into each other and discovering each other in the flesh, here on this planet.

So here I am. A non-writing writer taking a break from doing-everything-else-but-writing, to write. Like a non-drinking alcoholic taking a swig of whiskey. And I wonder where the wonder has gone, where the sense of awe I felt as a child for example thumbing the ridges in a seashell, listening to the soundwaves crashing in the conk, or feeling the actual waves pull the sand out from under my feet, or even just lying on the floor at my house in New Orleans watching the adults through the cracks in the wood floor. I wonder where that silent awareness has gone; that slow, present, precious observation I had as a child with all the time in the world to sit and rub my palms on the raised beads of the guest room comforter until my hands were numb and my mind calm. Sure, the Essence exists all the while, and I do experience it in bits and spurts, in huffs and puffs. Perhaps to try to capture it like butterfly in my net is to miss much of the mysticism. Perhaps.

Nevertheless, I yearn to document that I am here. I am here now, sitting at Café Brazil typing away on my mom’s tiny laptop, sipping a glass of deep purple malbec, listening to jazz rolling in from the exposed brick walls of the next room, with the slow spin of a couple of ceiling fans in the wooden rafters, trying not to wonder about the relationship of the threesome sitting next to me (parents and child? Friends?) and Juan Pablo is home with Emilio in Los Angeles and Lyla is asleep (hopefully) at home at my mom’s house and we are nevertheless inseparable on another level. But I am here. We are here. That is all I can say that is worth saying. But it is worth saying. For years now I have spent more time thinking about writing time than I have written and I have not felt more embedded in the moment but more removed from the overall arc of life. And I have not been happier on an artistic or spiritual level. I have been more detached. And although detachment has some value in a spiritual practice, I do want to dig my heels into the here and now, for all that is worth, or not worth, I want to be connected, really connected on a deeper, more intimate level, to this planet, to my loved ones, to my life, to myself.

SA Trip 2006 Photos to Send - 184 by Amiga Luz, on Flickr ” style=”" border=”0″ />

The time has come for me to take the reins of my life, my inner life, the one that does not include my amazing husband and two beautiful kids and to take control. I am in charge. I can choose to trot, gallop or stroll. I can choose a direction and set off into it. I can keep the blinders on or take them off. I can fix my gaze where I see fit. And I must do this because this life is not this table at which I sit, not this glass of wine, not this odd collection of porcelain cookie jars above the bar (an owl, a clock, an elf, santa claus). Rather, this life is truly a vast elaborate map of energy, a pathway of arteries and capillaries and veins, breaking off from each other and feeding back to the pure heart source. Things are not as they appear. That much is clear. Our focus affects the outcome. I have let mine wander. Well, to be fair, I have focused on my womb and my roots and I have given life to two beautiful, healthy children.

It’s just that now that I have given birth to these children and am out of the initial fog of infancy and since I no longer have a job to return to after June, I am at a crossroads and I don’t want to miss this opportunity for change and real growth. Now is this time.

Lyla

P1017575 by Amiga Luz, on Flickr " style="" border="0" />

I have a daughter. I still can’t believe it. She is four months already. I have not worked in six months and I got laid off so I will not be going back to the Big Law firm where I have been since 2002. Oh well. I guess two maternity leaves and part time status for three years does not make you a partner. Still, it’s weird to get asked to leave somewhere. Ew. I’ve always kind of prided myself on never having been fired, even from some college-era restaurant job or whatnot. Just like I’ve never been broken up with (after the first dude I fell in love with in high school who just never really fell in love back). But, okay, I can let that claim-to-fame go. Surprisingly, I m really not broken up about it. Just a little pinch to the ego.

You might wonder ("you" the mysterious, likely nonexistent reader, you) why I am back chatting away like I’ve never left this blog. Frankly, I’ve been meaning to get back to it for some time and just never seem to find the time to draft some eloquent re-immersion piece. So, instead, I’m diving in and just getting used to the process of putting words on *paper* just to "get ‘er done."

So, here I am. Here these words are. I am going to have to find some other work (though I am paid through June, thankfully), I have a brand new beautiful baby girl, and Emilio is starting preschool next week, so this should be as interesting time as any to document. Since I am fairly sure that no one is really reading this (save a couple of girl friends who might still check in on occasion), I am going to treat this as my online journal.

I like the feeling of putting my words out into the universe without a lot of fanfare. I’ve always thrived in an anonymous space. In college I used to participate in poetry slams and I never told anyone, except my mom who came once, that I was putting myself out there and competing at all of these public venues. Similarly, I had a cable access show in Boston and I never kept the video tapes. I just wanted to do it and be done with it. They always told me to bring a tape (yes, a vhs tape!) but after the first time, I never did it again. I didn’t want to watch and critique myself, and I preferred to think of the "performance" just kind of going out there into the void. It was kind of weird when people recognized me, which happened on occasion. Oh god, what a pathetic 15 minutes of fame. Not that I expect or particularly crave "fame" but to the extent that I am going to be recognized by people for work I’ve done, let it not be for my cable access show. Let that not be the pinnacle. It was pretty bad. I referenced having kept one tape of the first show and Juan Pablo watched it once in the first year or so of our relationship and he still can get teary-eyed laughing about it to this day. And he is no kind of hater, mind you. He is terrifically supportive and complementary of all of my endeavors. In this show the sound went out and it was just a hilarious debacle to watch me try to deal with the technical aspects while trying to remain calm. Plus I had pink hair.

But I digress. Point is: this might have to be like that for now because I will feel better about it than not writing anything at all and having it hang over my head.

So, for now, good night. But I am warning you: I will be back.

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Connections

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