2014, Year of the Rebel Yell

My word of the year will be unmoored. Untethered, unfettered. Unrealistic. At one.

with myself. Not with a potential self, an aspiring self, a trimmed self, a less-than self.

Unapologetic. Uncensored. A little unclean. A cluttered up hot air balloon self that can’t take off because I’ve packed too many paintbrushes and too many masks and too many apologies.

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This year  I set fire to apologies. Because they all boil down to I Am Not Enough. And I am sorry. So very sorry that I am not enough. Not good enough. Not a good enough housekeeper. Not a good enough pantry stocker. Not good enough to keep the graham crackers and the dried penne out of the outer rims of the undercounter on the kitchen floor. Unmoored. Loosened from the edges and drifting. That kind of resolve. That kind of resolution that lets and allows and flows and comes loose at the seams and drifts away from where it is safe.

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Hearing a thump outside tonight, my daughter said, "What was that sound?"

"It’s the gypsies," I said, with not a cloud drifting through my voice.  A clear answer. "They’re coming to take you."

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"No!!" She said.

And I said, “No.” And smiled reassuringly. “They’re coming for me...Isn’t that wonderful? I can roam around and you can have some time away from Mommy.” (We were at the end of a sassypants, confiscated rollerskates, yell at your mom as if she’s the child, gnash their terrible teeth kind of a day).

"But I’ll miss you," she pleads and real rolly tears slip from her storm grey eyes.

"But I’ll have fun...wearing lots of jewelry and wild clothes." I am starting to wish the gypsies were on their way.

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Tethered in gold, a canoe of a woman, a billowing tent of a woman, a stick of wheat between my teeth woman. My backbone on the river, rivulet of my spirit finding its way back into the clearing of my heart. The remnants of a fire, barely enough to warm the hands, ashes aglow with tiny embers like the eyes of small creatures, sole witnesses to the woman’s soul slipping from her still-cold hands.

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My word of the year is fuck all this shit. Empty out the recycling bin of my heart, sweep out the shards I keep cutting myself on. Sweep out what is broken. “But look how this memory catches the light when I turn it toward the sky!” “Yes, but look how it keeps cutting your hand…is it that beautiful back there that you aren’t even willing to let go, when you keep shredding your soul, such beauty in remembering, such pain in remembering that you can’t just drop it and move on?”

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My word of the year is heart like a prayer flag, lifted up, and hallelujah, amen. This word is a song of a word. This word is a hymn and a psalm and a balm of a word. Choose your word wisely; it will shape all you do. This word is the undersong of the underbelly of all my undermined dreams.

This word smells of Eucalyptus and salty sea air. This word smells of the lover I will never let go. This word smells of the me I will never let go, brine of the Pacific woven in my seaweed hair, a forgotten language leaping in my dolphin heart. Everything before me, blue. Everything before me, kissed with gypsy stardust. When the wind blows the heady scent of rose through the window, Child, your mother will be gone.

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My word is broken and I lay it across your lap like a wing. My word is silver and I lay it at your feet like a fin. My word is not enough. Mistranslated, misunderstood. My word has untied, has loosened her hair, has come undone.

Blessings and immense love,

Julia