life living

I woke up this morning and thought,

"I belong to the living."

I peaked out the window.  Across the graveyard, the sun was beginning a grand show.  First morning waking up in my bed in ten or so days.  I couldn't remember.  I made my way toward the coffee.

By the time I got to the kitchen, five shuffled steps away, I forgot why I was there.  

I belong to the living. The words filled my kitchen like sunlight.  I most certainly do.  Oh, that's incredible.

I always loved that Joni Mitch line.  "I want to shine at the sun.  I want to belong to the living."  For many years, deep down, I believed that I belonged to the broken.  I belonged to those who were not quite as shiny and alive.

I started writing a blog, this blog, in January 2010.  It was the dead middle of some dark years, and I was attempting to blast through some loud inner-perfectionism by showing my writing.  My friend Tanya encouraged me every single time I posted something.  I was thinking of my broken years and of her brightness in my life  and of my recovery when I forgot the coffee, basking in how good it is to be so Diane these days.

Tanya passed away on the 18th.  I found out in the morning of the 19th.   I gave a bunch of flowers to the Gingko tree that lives across the street from my bedroom window, at the edge of the graveyard.  I burned incense there and I prayed for her.  She loved that hippie stuff.   On the 20th I took off for 10 days in the woods, which felt appropriate.  I went with my boyfriend, who doesn't know Tanya but really reminds me of her.  On one of our walks he pointed to a plant and said, "that's mullein." I said, "like for lungs mullein?" "Exactly.  There're lots of uses for this plant."  Tanya could and would do that, point to a plant and let you know it's long list of uses, if you cared to know.  Learning about all things earth is heaven for this urban/suburban-raised, Sagitarius hippie-want-a-be.  It was comforting that he is like her in that.  Familiarity certainly helps grief grieve, but also it made her passions occur as immortal.  So I had ten days in nature, thinking about life and Goddesses and community and love and death and friendship and passion.  And living.  Yesterday we came home and I went to her memorial.

And this morning I woke up in my bed.  In a room across from a graveyard and a Gingko tree.  The flowers are still at the Gingko.  I added rose petals from her memorial service.

I feel so unmistakably alive.  I feel sad.  I feel excited.  I feel loved.  I feel...whole.  
I feel like I need coffee.  

I thought of Tanya's travel mug with the sticker "Give me coffee and no one gets hurt."  It was on the table where I sat with several of her other work friends, my friends, our friends, my former co-workers yesterday.  Her husband had put out random belongings that were very much part of who she was.  "Relics."  Her poems were printed out and scattered on table as well.  And stencils and little colorful stickers, very Tanya.  We laughed when her husband brought up the love of coffee and pointed out the mug.  She made us all laugh, that one.

The laughter had a timeless quality.  I hadn't seen half of these wonderful people in years.  I was amazed at how relieving it felt, and how much love I felt.  The laughter felt familiar, and like it never actually stopped.  Just paused.

Funny.  These are former co-workers. People who I haven't seen or really thought of in a while.  And it felt so good to be with them.  I was a little taken aback by something... I realized actually really love them.

That's one thing that I do quite well, one thing I love about being Diane.  I love.   And sometimes it hurts.  Often it hurts.  Sometimes it feels vulnerable, or embarrassing even, and I hide somewhere safe.  Sometimes I hide in that safe place a long, long time.  Mostly, though, I love and love and love.

I got back in bed with the coffee and a book called "The Rebirth of the Goddess."  I purchased it last night, after reading a chapter and balling my eyes out.  We said the Lords prayer at her memorial yesterday, followed by a prayer to the Goddess.  Several hours later, I find myself crying with grief and with gratitude.  She was a gift in my life.  I stayed in bed a while.  It felt like the perfect thing to do, a little Goddess excavation while thinking of Tanya on Easter Morning.

I hadn't seen Tanya in years until I saw her in the hospital.  When I started this blog, we had kept in touch quite regularly via the internet, but I hadn't seen her face or heard her laugh in at least two years.  The past couple weeks, I think of how many times Tanya or I said "We really should get together.  I miss you."  But we didn't get together.  

It makes me want to gather you all in my home.  Tomorrow.  By five.

I wrote a poem of sorts the day that I found out that Tanya was not going to continue treating her cancer, and that she didn't have long to live.  I sat down, compelled to write, on a cold stone bench in my little city, crying in broad day light, writing with a small purple "Miffy" marker.  I'm going to post it below. I'm not going to edit it.  I'm not going to edit this post much, either, because i'll never get it perfect and i need to live on.  What Tanya taught me (taught many of us) so well was to LIVE, dammit.  My goodness, she LIVED.  The fact that she is not alive today really punctuates the dammit.  It hurts.  And I'm awake.  When I started this blog, it was a "fuck you" to perfectionism and a "Hell yes" to the unique view that makes me me.  Tanya really was my biggest support.  She even told me that she started her own blog because mine inspired her.  To a girl who wants to belong to the living, that is certainly something.

Over the years, as I grew and grew, I removed most of the postings from this blog.  I've changed so much.  I've healed.  I woke up this morning with the astounding realization that living does not occur, as it did for most of my life, as something I will do some day.   The women who, like Tanya, paid attention, who heard my pain and my excitement and my joy, and said simple things like, "you're doing it, love," they were my midwives.  We midwife the living in each other.  We birth our stories and our light.
It's Easter Sunday.  I am reborn.  We are all reborn.  It's about damn time I let this living life boil over in words and song again.
___

On the day that I found out that you were dying

I went into a quick haze of fix-it,

called a friend who loves you too and left a message,

     planned a visit in my head,

     made mental note to ask my church to pray for you and your family,

     thought about your kids,

Then found myself in the doorway, crying.

I stepped outside, where there was no haze

Just the brightest sun I've ever seen on a February day

The colors of the little college town were louder and

they played with the day.
I saw a young woman with Green hair and loved her
and i thought that you would love her, too
An urgency swept over me  
to live and live and live
and I walked off, in a daze-antidote

I spend so much time dreaming that this level of awake feels like day-glo
quiet, and screaming
and almost too real to be real

and it felt like a gift
and i knew it was a gift
and you are a gift
and i am a gift

I fell to the nearest bench to write down my praise
---

I could only find this purple marker in my bag.
It feels perfectly playful
like you, beautiful.

I can feel the wish at the edges
the desire to have my impending prayer matter.
                  "Don't go!"

But I've learned that it isn't up to you or me.

So, I'll say "My friend...

just in case this is goodbye
please know
that you are pure gift
that you teach me to love more 
that you leave me loving stronger, brighter, 
and with more urgency

as well as softer, kinder, and with more faith.

And if it really is goodbye
then I say 'goodbye for now'
and until then i will miss you

And of course, Thank you, Beautiful friend."