brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec 22-Jan 19): "The great theme is not Romeo and Juliet," said poet Anne Sexton. "The great theme we all share is that of becoming ourselves, of overcoming our father and mother, of assuming our identities somehow." This is certainly your great theme, Capricorn. And it's especially important for you to devote yourself to it now. You're at a turning point in your life-long transformation. You're being presented with a clear-cut choice between sinking back into the ill-fitting yet comfortable mold that others have shaped for you, or else striding out into the frontier in a brave push to become a higher, deeper, more complete version of yourself.

on suset highway
over mountains and through rain
can respite be found.
--delena haiku

today i went in search of peace. or perhaps peace isn't the right word. but i went today in search of...something.

i actually woke up before 7; my boy was meowing so very pitifully outside my bedroom door. much as i love him, i don't let the little one sleep with me even though nothing would make me happier. alas, given i'm cursed as the lightest sleeper who ever lived, even his bath time keeps me awake and drives me nuts. i mean, it's wonderful he's so fastidious, but it's a nightmare trying to sleep with all that slurping and fussing and preening and grooming going on. drives me nuts. so he gets cuddles, then it's toss-out time when i want to finally go to bed.

so he woke me up with his crying and i let him in. i had actually intended to get up, but rumblestrut was so happy to be with me that he curled up under the sheets, his little grey-and-white chin resting on my hand, and he was purring so loudly i felt the vibrations in my chest. so we curled up together and took another nap. cat-induced narcolepsy.

i woke again around 10, this time determined to find what it was that tugged at me so. it was simple, getting ready. should the iGoddess-hatchling actually come into being, i'll miss these days of being so easily portable.

in oregon, there's really nothing worth much interest until you get to portland. the drive up the western side of the mountains is absolutely gorgeous, as is the drive through the columbia river gorge. however, once you hit wilsonville (about 30 mins or so south of downtown portland) there's nothing worth mentioning until you hit, say, san francisco. so i jumped on the freeway and headed north, and let the car go where it would. it rained off and on, typical of a portland april, and the sky was grey, and the warmest it got was around 50F. which, actually, is kinda warm up here.

two national parks and a thunderstorm later, i found myself on the oregon coast, taking a familiar route up to Hug Point, a favorite of mine. it's a secluded little cove, its entrance off the 101 so tiny you could blink at the wrong time and miss it. the little beach is maybe two football fields across -- maybe.

i always head to the far side. big surprise, huh? that little cave you see way in the distance is actually close to the parking lot. lots of people like to explore it. i have yet to do so. to get to this cove, you have to walk down a little incline, down wooden stairs that end a good two paces above nothing but rocks. and not big, climbable rocks, either. these are twist-your-ankle, no-reliable-footing kinds of rocks that extend the entire breadth of the cove, and about 50 feet in. there's no getting around them. that stretch of sand is about a third of hug point. the rest is rocks. not many people go there.

that's the point.

this huge rock jutting out of nothing is on my side of the cove. to me it's ginormous, and kind of reminds me of being at morro bay in california. that rock is famous. and sitting there between this jutting tooth of granite and the left arm of the cliffs, i always feel a little safer. like i'm flanked by two faithful sentinels who will make sure none approach me.

well, all except a curious little gull. unfortunately, my new camera i bought only yesterday is so new i had yet to realize the limits of its capacity, and the memory was already full before i could get a picture of him. no matter where i went, he was always there staring at me. curious little bugger, and bold as brass, too. i waved at him, stared at him, walked over to him, stuck my tongue out at him, and all he ever did was blink at me, turning his head this way and that as if thinking, "...the hell?"

i climbed rocks. i smelled seaweed and sand and brine. i felt the cold sting of the ocean breeze. my butt fell asleep on cold, sharp rocks bristling with tiny, razor-sharp barnacles. i scraped a knuckle on one of them. i listened to the churning, arthythmic roar of the waves restlessly pounding against one another. i heard the sigh of sea foam popping. i felt the pull of the tide, as i always do.

my favorite part of today was how i didn't have to say a single word as long as i didn't want to. i realized then that i'd gone searching for silence. in the chaos of work --with whirring dryers and fans, barking and howling dogs, ringing phones, clanging kennel doors, and women shouting over it all-- i can't hear anything but stress. in the echoing roar of depression and this black anger towards all men, i can't hear my heart. with my brother and sister, listening so hard for signs to their own moods, i've lost the sound of my own. in the clamor inside my own head --dates, errands, bills, online orders, available balances, insecurities, this utter failure as a lovable woman-- i can't hear anything else.

i just wanted silence.

i said seven words today, while ordering lunch. i'd even seriously debated writing it down, so i wouldn't have to break my wonderful silence, but i felt that might be too dramatic or drastic. i said, "clam chowder and salad, please." and then i said, "thank you," when my very nice server brought me my check with a smile on her face. but i was silent, and i didn't even pay attention to where my thoughts wandered. i let my emotions rise and fall as they would, rolling like the tide on the shore, burbling and foaming, gushing around rocks and filling gullies in the sand. and when they were done being felt, they receded back into the ocean of my soul...where the constant roar is muted, and soothing, and reminds us of the comforting roar that surrounded us when we first decided to sprout legs and climb out of the primordial soup.

a large part of me didn't want to go home because i knew i'd have to break the silence. i didn't want to. for the most part, i managed not to. none of my thoughts were completely focused. i wrote haiku. i read a little of the art of seduction, oh irony of ironies. vague thoughts of becoming other than myself began to surface, inklings that perhaps "being myself" was a load of bunk by misguided-yet-well-meaning people who had purchased at full price the politically correct propaganda of the new millennium. being myself hadn't worked. maybe i had to be more than myself. maybe it was time to remake myself. maybe the naked, granola, all my cards on the table, take-me-as-you-see-me organic amazon wasn't the right way to go. it might be genuine, but it's not exactly spiritually fulfilling. and i'm not happy, and i'm definitely no closer to ending this emotional exile known as "the single life." i tried embracing it, but i fucking hate it. and i hate living up to the labels others have given me, no matter how accurate they might've been at the time.

to be quite honest.

i've been approaching this event horizon for quite some time, possibly since my first suspicions that *m* and i were already falling apart. parts of me have already build their cocoons and are transforming themselves. other parts are boiling away excess. only now --even as i write this entry-- do i realize that while this idea seems new to me, already i've been undergoing the process of this new genesis.

and with that parting thought, i leave you with more delena haiku:

the deep ocean roar
calls to something deep inside--
perhaps calls me home.