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Rough Tor

Before each trip in my list of preparations is the need to make a musical playlist. I typically spend a quite a bit of time driving and when not, I am rambling about alone. Music is a prescription I must always have filled. Throughout my life it has meant various things. Only one person truly knows who I am via the music I hear. My precious mother can detect the smallest tectonic shift over the songs I hum or phrases I reference. Most of my music taste came from my mother and her family. What was played at Christmas or birthdays or on those very long drives home from work. Yet somewhere along the way I acquired an affinity for Blues music. I’d be lying if I said when I found it but I can remember a very specific moment when the music felt so real to me that I could almost wonder if I could have written it myself. Billie became the other half of me.

The year is….I don’t even want to think about it so it was a long time ago. My little apartment above the garage on the west side of the house. I was far removed from everyone. “ You deserve your privacy” she said to me as she showed me the biggest bedroom I had ever been in. I had moved up north to care for her children and in some ways I felt, care for her. The truth is that my soul was what was in desperate need of love and care. I had reached a point in my very young life where the mistakes of my past had come to confront me and the hope I had for the future perished. I talk about this often but as a young girl I learned that the truth was freedom from the burden of lying but not freedom from the pain of its current iteration. There was so much truth I desired to bury deep within my belly. The cold patio offered refuge from the little boys that constantly called for me. I miss that. I miss being needed by those little ones, I miss waking them in the morning and reading them stories at night. They are big now and probably don’t even know my name anymore. The irony of that being that it was my name they would call out at night when their nightmares drew too close and the train light no longer enough to illuminate the truth of their safety. Down the long hallway they would run, their little sweaty feet slapping against the wood floors and before long silence as they stood at my door turning the handle quietly before pushing in.

I would unfurl myself and welcome them into my warm nook to get their rest. The oldest would make me pinky promise not to take him back to bed. I could feel him nestle his head into my hands and exhale and soon he would drift back to sleep, leaving me as gargoyle ready to absorb any of those bad dreams. It was here in that same room that grief would overwhelm me and Gloomy Sunday would play on repeat.

As you know…or should, I am on vacation in England; Cornwall to be specific. Having chosen the coastline for this adventure I can Only declare destiny that the wind howls as she does here or how heavens pour down. I have been kept inside from the many adventures I had planned. The first time I was kept in I felt almost a permission slip from God to stay in bed and just rest. When the next day arrived with the same outlook I began to feel this imaginary pressure to go out and explore, that I was being held back. With little choice I settled into the sofa looking out to the water with my book….”A Woman Destroyed”. I literally can’t make this shit up….anyways the book has had very little bearing on me, other than being an interesting glimpse into the future that seems to await every woman. However curled up on the couch with all the doors open and the aggressive sound of the water crashing on the shore below I was brought back to the cold of the house on Angus Lane which also meant the sounds of Billie filling the air.

Pause – Mama I promise I’m ok. I think for the first time I could hear her pain and detach myself from it. To remember my sadness but also remember that it sits in the past. Grief is not unknown and neither is the knowledge that I will live past this moment, this pain and these memories.

Ok back to it. This is aging, or growing up. My memories and their names are never far from me but I no longer believe I will be crushed by my need to have them back beside me and the life we were meant to have. One of the things that started on these travels was the parts of myself I would leave behind. I had framed all my trips in September for that very reason. It became a time when I would “lose” something of myself in each of these countries. It started as an exercise of my grief. I was alone in a country that didn’t know my name and I could openly grieve them both, I could wrap myself in those memories, that anger and yell out to my God for answers and only the sheep and rocks would hear me. I can recall what and where I left each of these pieces of myself. Scattered across the world so that no matter where I ever am they are never far from me. But it’s May and I expected all of me to return and yet…I sit on the floor before the French doors open to the ocean with only the white of this page to illuminate my face and pieces falling off me each time I breath out.

On Saturday I attended virtually a theology class I used to frequent often. I used to have a very close relationship/friendship with the professor and unfortunately one day that was dissolved. Much like the deaths that have trailed me it was abrupt, with no explanation and no salve to ease me. It’s been years and my heart has not forgiven him. I’m not sure what came over me but I followed the link and soon I was face to face with him ( and a few other people in the room lol). I listened intently, my microphone on mute so my tears would not provide any verbal resonance. The content of the lesson while important is for this purpose irrelevant, although in truth in defiance of it I was able to draw closer to God and truly hear what was required of me.

I would need to leave him here. I would need to leave the dreams I had, the desires I carried. They must be deconsecrated from my heart and tossed to the sea like the ashes of those i love that have left me. How will I do that? I cried out to God in desperation. I had only been able to leave pieces of those he already held in his bosom, how now was I suppose to grieve him when his face, voice and name would never be far from me. Then the gift arrived…Billie began to sing and as I sat hearing her words against the crashing of the waves I finally saw it. I saw all the parts of myself I lifted above my head as an offering to this mere mortal man. His clumsy hands dropping the platter as parts of me went flying. He was and is unworthy of me. “For my love is like the wind and wild is the wind.”

I don’t know what weather will greet me when I arise tomorrow but when I reach the top of the Tor whether it is tomorrow or the next day, I know now what will be left on the high peak. The memory, desire, dreams and lust for a man who never saw the diamond before him. Moreover the girl desperate to not lose anything else must also remain behind.

May 28, 2024
The Edge

Eirinn Go Bragh. This Was the last thing my papa bear wrote to me as I made my way across the pond to Ireland. That phrase became so real to me as I settled into the countryside and rambled my way through her cliffs and valleys. I would return to the Emerald Isle a few more times over the next years and soon that phrase would change into a state of mind.

I returned to England yesterday. Another country whose lands I continue to reach out to for comfort and understanding. Much like that first trip to Ireland, I landed and quickly embarked upon the very long drive to the other side of the coast. I underestimated the weariness not only of my body but my mind and soon I found myself pulling off the highway and resting my eyes for just a few moments, careful not to allow them to turn to sleep. I continued on this cycle for the next 6 hours, stopping to eat, to rest, to cry.

Then just like that the roads lowered their head in reverence and revealed the mighty ocean and the cliffs below.

I had once again arrived at the edge of the world. I parked my car on the roadside as instructed, convincing my American side that this was the custom, assuaging my own fear of my car being taken. I looked around before I began to follow the directions to my new home.

“Make your way down the path to the Monument”. I knew the path would be a bit difficult, it was noted there was uneven steps and metal rails to assist and yet what I found was a tunnel of trouble. Emerging from this unscathed would take an act of God. I pulled my overnight bag from its resting place on my suitcase, lowered the handle and lifted. I would have to navigate this path with no hands, but even more frightening there would be no room for fear, it is always in the fear that I “lose my balance, graze my knee, graze my heart”. I took my time, leaning when I could, stopping to determine the safest rock to step upon. Just as the fear began to creep down my head to my feet the bushes that had hedged me in subsided and before me was that little cottage made of glass at the Edge of the world waiting to hold me.

I waited as long as I could before I gave way to the closing of my eyes. Slumber would arrive before twilight. The shades around the window barely able to keep out the sun that still shone late into the evenings. It made me wish for more energy and yet it reminded me of the girl who could not sleep until the Sun had risen. I had folded her into my heart and yet here she was demanding to be remembered. Perhaps more desiring for my adult heart to comfort hers. I obliged and curled deep under the covers my arms cradling my head and belly. I would stay this way till my breathing paced and my mind drifted. Soon I was deep under the cover of slumber. I had expected to sleep like that first night in Ireland, so desperate had I been for sleep that soon I had passed the acceptable hours and my hosts worried if they should rile me from the North bedroom. It was 15 hours before my eyes opened. I had never slept that much in my life. How did I feel so safe in an unknown country, in a home that belonged to strangers? I’m not sure the answer has come yet, but in its place has been the understanding that my true rest comes when I am no longer in a place that knows my name. Home is the place where I most guard myself, I think that part is obvious. There are dangers there that don’t exist with the chasm of water between us. Here is where my heart finds its rest, where my soul converts its desires into words and tears that flow like a waterfall.

I think this is why writers and artists tend to be creatures of solitude. Our hearts and minds feel and think deeply and those around us usually shun us or belittle us and our inability to create what they perceive to be healthy relationships and connections. How do we do that when every action brings forth a bandy in which all the spectrum of emotions rest. Nothing is by accident and every word containing a kernel of truth. In some way writers are much like scientists. Testing theories and working to prove something. Locked in a laboratory the only discernible truth is the one made thru a series of discoveries that build on each other, creating a base of understanding. Most of the time this is the part of me that vexes (Bridgerton vibes) people greatly, even if they don’t realize what “it” is. It’s not that I think so little of people or so highly of myself. It is that I have seen how far people will run to not hold their own pain let alone someone else’s.

Ok you know the deal by now….I jump around. When I was younger I developed a reputation for being a good listener. My mother called me “Mumford” ( I’ve discussed this before). My Godmother used to say I was a therapist without a degree. These are things they said about me as a young child. How had I so quickly adapted to listening to others, empathizing and offering comfort and at times guidance. When you are very young and are taught or told to keep secrets, you realize how devastated people must be in the world if they are all doing the same. I became willing to be a safe place for people because I didn’t have to imagine their desperation, I was living it. As I aged the weight of all these truths began to show, I became incredibly despondent and reckless. I had lost respect for the concept of family and friendship. I had found that they all betrayed and the safest place was within.

I’m not quite sure when I emerged from this unpaid position, I think some would say I merely went part time. Ireland was the first time I let nature be my Mumford. I cried out on roads, in tunnels, on cliffs and of course in pubs. A lifetime of emotions sprang forth from me in the safest place in the world. In the years that followed I would continue to travel annually my “big trips” as they were often referred too.

Three years ago I took a trip to France that resembled my first one. I rented a car and drove as many hundreds of miles of the French countryside that I could. Sightseeing by day and introspecting by night. At the start of the journey I had acquired a partner in crime, although he was not physically by my side I carried him with me, every night his voice was the last I would hear. I never took so many pictures of myself on a trip. There was a bliss, a certainty, a light in my eyes that I had not seen for such a long time. Words flowed but they were filled with love and hope. Wow that word was hard to write. I have lived so long without it. It’s not true by the way what they say that you can’t live without hope. You can be alive without it but thriving is out of the question, you simply exist passing thru the world and waiting for its end. See this is what I mean – some of you will read this and think “how dramatic”, but the truth is that perception truly is reality. The experiences that had made me a great listener had also made me a recluse of heart, mind and body. It was in France that I thought I had found a safe place in someone else but soon it would turn danger as so many others had before.

I was going to return to France this year as a do over. To try to make memories that weren’t colored by his name and his voice and all the things we had promised. But I could not return just yet, I needed more tears to fall before my eyes would clear and I could see the world without the blurring and pressing of Kleenex against my cheek. England would have to do.

I write this from the floor of the living room. The French doors before me opened wide while the rain stays just beyond the roof line. The wind is cold and the haze that hovers above the ocean causes its division with the sky to be indistinguishable. When

I began the sun was still shining and the tide had almost returned to its position tight against the cliff face, now the only light is from my screen, the water falling all around me. I am tired again. My mothers voice the last decibels ringing in my ears, gravity pulling me deeper onto the floorboards and the wine has finally made its way to my nervous system. Sleep beckons and I must oblige.

I leave this here – something I heard long ago that might finally be making sense. “Weigh the balance of the closeness you could form against your own vulnerability”.

Meli Go Bragh

May 25, 2024
Bed Rest

I’ve taken to bed.

Being a world traveler hahaha, I’ll admit I take pride in saying that. I have found how varied the concept of vacations is to people. From my own travel companions to the friends I have met along the way. I have been fortunate that I have had such diverse experiences.

I arrived in England yesterday. A trip I had always planned to share with my mother who like me has an affinity for the countryside and the quiet noise it offers. Travel days usually have nothing of note, unless some small catastrophe happens and my patience is tested. Luckily we moved thru ours without incident. I remember the day vividly, having only been yesterday and yet there was a blur around it, much like the Portrait mode i love to take photos in.

I slipped between the cold white sheets with the curtains drawn and the last of the sunlight rounding its edges. My eyes could wait no more, peace had arrived and sleep was the only response. I left the window open in the hopes the cool night air would undo the warmth of the evening sun. Seems like such a wrong sentence and yet here the days are long and often times their sun lasts deep into the evening.

I awoke to the call of the birds, reminding me of my safety and pulling me from it’s slumber. Yet I could not find a way to have my feet touch the ground. So I have taken to bed. I have no desire to emerge from this well lit cave. I can feel the calm returning and I want even if for just a week to feel it live within my fingertips. I opened the curtains and allowed the gardens in and my emotions out. What will follow in these days is an eruption of work, love, restlessness and most importantly and hopefully a reflection of the change I pray continues to occur within my very soul.

May 27, 2023
Tick Tock

Because of my many travels I think I find myself most comfortable at a table for one. I began to look at writing as if it was a conversation happening but no one could hear. I became very comfortable or rather familiar with the posture of being alone with my thoughts as terrifying as they have always been.

The new year is eating away at the hours and there is so much I didn’t say and yet there seems to be heaps more of things I wish I had never said, written or sent. Remorse such a heavy load that I seem too ready to pick up and sling over my shoulder. Sometimes I think perhaps it’s similar to self harm, which creates an external representation of pain and a place for the pain to escape. That heavy load I seem so eager to carry is really the representation of the weight of sadness I live under. Sadness and it’s explanation has been one that eludes me, so it’s easier to point to the load as the reason for being downtrodden.

I had a conversation with my younger wisdom. Ok let’s deviate (on purpose). My brother used to say to me he wanted to spend 10 years each studying wine, whiskey and coffee. He felt, that length of time would make him well versed. I understood the concept and decided to expand it, “using my soul as raw materials”. I wanted to have friendships with those who were 10 yrs older and 10 yrs younger. Having felt the weight of my years and having the memory of myself at other ages I realized how much good would come from always being able to hold the tension and harness the power of 20 years of current perspectives and analysis.

Ok back to my younger wisdom- shit can you believe I actually forgot. Maybe the gold was the idea and not what she said. I’ll remember later and tell you.

Back to current status in the hope it will jog the memory.

This year has taught me so much about myself. I mean that in the non jaded way. Motherfuckers messed with me hard this year. Sorry, while I am never against profanity seeing that word written hits hard, and yet as I look back I realize it is still the best word to describe the people, mostly men I let BACK in this year only to lay in the bed they took a shit in. As angry as they all made me, as destitute as i felt at times, I am so grateful for all those actions and inactions, as they finally lead me to intolerance. I know that seems skewed. It’s not, I’m not confused about the word. I have built my intolerance level which apparently used to be non existent. Ok wait I can hear my family up in arms, I mean men 🙄. I’ve been intolerant with family for very long but that work is saved for a therapist and not my elephant memory that has been unwilling to forgive people and allow them to be in positions where they reap benefits they never sowed. I really deviate often don’t I? This is why I could never be a writer, also why I see these as conversations. Punctuation not needed !

Oh yay I remembered. Ok we were talking about New Years’ and how it’s ridiculous that we use it as this blank slate, how it is seemingly the best time to start new diets or habits. This is my younger wisdom btw. One of the benefits of youngers is I can see her understanding but I can overlay it like an architect over mine and see how they intersect but also where they differ.

How do I explain to her that creating an end and beginning point gives us control in a world where if we are honest we have no control. I mean it we don’t have any control. I try not to look and dissect it too long, it creates anxiety when I think he meant it to create relief and peace.

See I understand why she thinks of time as this continuous thing, in truth because it is. Time doesn’t have a stop or a start that isn’t marked by the beginning of all time and the end. We as humans created this figment of time as a way to track, forgive and mark ourselves. It is only in the simultaneous depth of youth and adulthood that we see time as ancillary. When clocks are for days and not hours, minutes and seconds. Those are the days they use, not count. I tried to find the flaw in her argument and I could not. Counting has always hurt me. Years without his little face, hours without words uttered, all the minutes of unnecessary air- did I need to count them ? Would they hurt less? When I looked at it I actually saw how much pain I would relieve myself of if I stopped counting. Stopped counting the bruises covered, countless repairs of my heart and all those damn false starts.

This new year isn’t actually new. It’s this constant continuation of the decisions of the day before and the hope I keep for tomorrow. I make no commitment to tomorrow, I am starting no diet or journey, I am in fact continuing the one that began all those years ago in a bath tub with my mother and father hovering above me.

Let me try to close the loop on this. The new year is 2 hours away and i think I finally understand how little this or time in general means. I am no longer fearful of the clock internal or otherwise ticking, creating fear for yet another item I can not control. Love has eluded me thus far and instead of counting the time without it, I want to live in the moment that I have been given that is full of luxuries and so many moments of blissful happiness and not the doom of counting.

I left this undone last night. The new year arriving and already becoming old. I feel sadness but also somehow peace. I have a new word for this year. I’ve had it for months and it has already given dividends. I hope to descend to the depths of my soul and ascend to the heights of the sky where the air is clear and all

Is forgiven. I will see you back here…who knows when. I’m done counting.

January 2, 2023
Mothering Sunday

I was never close with my maternal grandmother …wait that’s not true. There was a time in my life when I slept by her side every two weeks. Where I labored beside her- polishing her silver, organizing her threads and watching as she flipped that switch and turned fabric to clothes.

There was this wonderful winter she sewed at least a half a dozen nightgowns for me. I would be visiting my fathers mother, mi ofelia in bogota. I still remember those gowns. I treasured them dearly on those very cold mornings when I could feel the frost everywhere around me. She would start the water and shush the servants while I remained in her bed. I always slept with her. Although I would say the always was never enough. I remember going into the shower in the morning, it was in a windowless room with a large Roman style tub.

It’s interesting the parallels I can draw of myself and my parents with their parents, more specifically their mothers, and what I learned from them.

Abuela Ana was a staunch woman. There was love there but at times it felt more like a stream and less a river. It was quickly moving. Bringing just barely enough nutrients to survive and then pressing forward. I remember those weekends with her. She taught me in many ways to survive. Part of it was learning that even in her home

I wasn’t safe. I try not to be sad about it anymore – I realize now there was so much she missed and lost. How could she ever have kept a look out. More still she never really understood the emotional part of caregiving.

The irony anyone who knows her would say is that to strangers she was the most loving, kind, generous and forgiving. Maybe she was like that with her other grandchildren, maybe they were better equipped. I remember how measured she was. She loved me in her way I believe, I choose to believe at least. I’m going to stray but this matters. One of my terrible (subjective) traits growing up was often I would ask or tell my mother of my love for her and my desperate desire for her love. It was never a lack of love but I somehow needed the words.

She had married and Bourn children with an artist of a different kind – one who felt emotions and acted upon them without thought or reasoning. What a prize that would seem…but emotions run the gamut and they at times turn like a bad wine, bitter and full of sediment. I needed love the way he did. Viscerally and physically expressed.

I was to young to convert the security of a home and meals to love. They seemed like necessities and not offerings of affection. I think now as I look back on that time with my grandmother I am able to see how my mother became the woman she is or used to be I should say. Her actions, her sacrifice was her form of communicating that love she felt for me (again siblings…again difference in opinion). It took a long time to understand that, but soon I would stop asking as often if she loved me, or shouting back to her my love in the hopes of reciprocation. It was only as an adult that I understood how she learned, it was only looking back on how my grandmother loved me that I could see my mother. Moreover it has made the journey of her expression of love to me so much greater.

Now my abuelita Ofelia- ohhh that sweet woman who is the smallest of us all and yet the heart that beats within those probably 80lbs is the biggest one I think God may have created. I hope when my mama reads that it doesn’t break her heart. I hope she understands that love is so multi faceted because we are and sometimes the reflection we need is not always the one in the closest proximity. My ofelia is one of the most treasured possessions I never really had the chance to own/hold. Does that make sense ?

It’s hard to understand and yet if I’m

Honest it’s easy. Love is so damn imperfect and marriage is apparently so hard that I wasn’t able to feel the warmth of my Ofelia for longer than weeks but less than months. Yet I hold no anger nor even the sadness that would keep me shackled to the past. I believe the love that runs so deeply in her veins is already in mine and further tutelage wasn’t needed.

I am her granddaughter in ways I never walked or could understand. Yet I apparently carry her heart in mine. She taught me to be delicate, patient and loving. She taught me big lunches meant little dinners and the failures of our children are merely lessons they will grow from and not battles that have defeated them. I say that as the daughter of the man who called her mother.

Im finally reaching this point in my life after some 20 something years of coherence where I see the things I have endured as lessons. Where while the pain remains, the understanding has become greater. I think that part of my abuela Ana is kicking in. The part that says this shit is so fucking hard that sometimes it feels like the air has gone and your lungs have collapsed, but I am strong. I am more than the sum of my failures, that my value is greater than the silver I shine or the threads I weave. Thank you abuela for teaching me that. I used to think you were cold but now I realize you were hibernating. You were conserving the energy you would need so that the next battle wouldn’t rip you to shreds and by god did you have battles.

I will never be able to love her the way others did. There are wounds that even now thru this I am working thru but I promise I’m trying. When I think of her I pray that she is in heaven. I used to pray it for my mothers sake but now I pray it for yours. I see how easy it could be to stray with so much strife.

Sometimes I don’t know how to end these. Mostly because I don’t think I’m done but the tears that constantly flow tire me and the words begin to get stopped by my gasps for breath. Will you let me rest and return to you ?

More honestly will you forgive me if I can’t or don’t.

September 20, 2022
Structured Release

Ciao Italia – this was the header I imagined for my first post. I like most of the world have wanted to come to Italy for so long. The land of pasta and wine – ancient romans and cypress lined hillsides. We had promised we would come together – my best friend and I that is. We knew we wanted to wait till we could go for long and have the funds to do the best and most fun and memorable things. It would be three years before we finally said it was time to go.

I had learned in France that I no longer wanted to really “plan” my trips with the same rigidity as before. There were mornings when it was rainy or a bit chilly and it seemed better inside by a fire with a book or my iPad then struggling on small roads with the windshield wipers going hoping I would be able to find the attraction I had set out for. I had been so rigid on my trips and I would come home exhausted although still exhilarated from the adventure the former however left me feeling the proverbial need to have a vacation from my vacation. I didn’t want that anymore – I was spending time and money and I wanted to see the world but also I wanted to stay in with a book looking out at cliffs or on rooftops looking out at all the cathedral domes before me. So let’s talk sauce…

We landed in Rome but we would be saving him for last – Firenze was calling and although I don’t really like cities she felt more like a small town that got a bit big for her britches. Here’s the thing about cities – they are full of brick and marble and concrete and all those things are hard and cold and used to create barriers. It’s hard for me to breathe in cities- it doesn’t awe me to see what man creates- we are arrogant and narcissistic and our ability to create beautiful things in my opinion is never as a tribute but rather a reflection of our own grandiosity.

I do think that Europe and other countries have understood a bit better than “home” the idea of working within the landscape there are so many places here in Italy that I feel met that but they aren’t cities they are glorified towns and that my friends is where this darling girl feels her heart beat and her lungs expand. I am never more aware of myself and my small place in the world then when I am in the country.

Florence was in many ways still what I expected of her, she was small but bright. Somehow you could probably wander for hours, finding small osterias and walls with windows for wine. Her inhabitants a bit brusque for me, I’m telling you its all those walls. We mimic what we see everyday and while those alleys and small cut thru’s are sweet and preciously adorned the buildings rising up on each side giving you but a piece of sky and if you know me I want so much more than just a piece. I counted the moments till we picked up the car and headed to the Tuscan hillside to the place we would call home for a few days- Montalcino.

I could regurgitate the difficulties we encountered on the way but it will only remind me of the many things I still need to work on. trying to leave Florence definitely did that. Needless to say it was my tuti that stood in that gap and while I will always somehow feel guilty that I needed it I will forever be thankful that I had it, having had plenty of times when I didn’t. The drive was short – for me at least. I could drive on country roads for hours – I usually do haha.

We arrived to the winery that would also be our home and I immediately felt my shoulders drop. I was still in my head a bit about work which I need to work on but that is for therapy and not this one sided version I have created with this blog. Anyway I had reserved a tour and wine pairing dinner at a beautiful 10th century settlement that was later turned into a winery. I changed into a dress wanting to accept myself as I currently am and present myself with the image I have in my mind of beauty and grace. Although somewhere on that estate I would lose it.

We arrived at dusk, I wish a lens could capture the feeling and visual the sun gives as it sets on the hillside. There is almost this mist or fog that hovers above the greener illuminated by the darker orange and red tones the sun gives as she moves on to her next port of call. As we walked towards the vines a call would interrupt that peace that was attempting to sink in. I headed away from our guide and rested on the stone wall below the vines. My eyes stayed at the vessel full of dark purple grapes waiting their turn to be pressed. Ugh I was those grapes, I am those grapes.

“It is always the way of events in this life,..no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant resting place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired” oh Charlotte how right you are. I turned to find a familiar face somewhere among the vines and as I walked a bit behind them trying to keep pace I unloaded the thing that was weighing me down- I drew the air deep into my lungs and worked to force myself out of the slumber of work and move on.

I don’t know that I’ll go back to recounting my days of travel as if I was a “travel blogger”. That I am not. I don’t want to influence anyone to go anywhere or really do anything. This blog, these words they aren’t actually for you. It’s my version of strengthing my legs and like Sza says “good day in my mind, safe to take a step out, get some air now…” I can’t keep going cause the lyric turns sour but this is why I write- to get some air. Here high above the city when just the domes shadow me is good air – hell of a breeze if I’m honest.

Back to the hillside we go. The next day or two went by a bit unplanned and yet I was maybe my happiest. I could hear the silence ya know. I could hear the thoughts in my head clearly – as if the wide open spaces allowed them to organize in their own little corners and create pathways I could walk calmly. It’s the difference between Ross and Target. Everything jammed onto a rail where the only way to find anything is to roughly push things back and forth so you can see each item stuffed deeply in or assigned places, beautiful displays, wide open spaces to maneuver thru. That’s how I felt – I could have stayed there another week but it would not be this time around. After just a couple days we were back on the road heading down to the coast. Ironically I was the most nervous and least excited about this. I by no means like stairs or much of my body when those things are combined it’s really just a recipe for the magnification of my insecurities. But when I tell you God does not play I mean it. How is it that in what seemed to be a town of wealth – the visitors not the residents, where everyone is beautiful and thin and finely dressed I was the commodity. At least that’s how the boys at the beach club made it seem.

I’ve always been told I’m a bit too friendly with men, I would not necessarily disagree but I don’t think its for the reasons others might claim. No I don’t need everyman to love or want me but if I’m not open and kind and friendly and welcoming then how many times will my shrugged shoulders turn them away, how then will I find the man I long for, the one I always seem to write about and to. The problem lies not in that openness but in the flirtatious nature I tend to exude- but ironically that is the defense mechanism. For me it’s the same as when you make a fat joke about yourself so no one else does or so you can seem to be able to laugh it off. It’s not real – you don’t really feel that its funny but its easier to make those around you feel safe then to vocalize how their carelessness makes you feel so fucking unsafe.

When I flirt with men, it’s not because I am always attracted to them or for fun but rather because I feel that when I am flirtatious they reciprocate with the energy they would give a woman they are attracted to, and that everybody, is positively, accommodating and fun. That’s what I want to feel or focus on.

So yes when the waiter or the bartender walks past me I smile, I wink, I provoke. I want the memory of me in their mind to be that I saw them. That while they were serving me they were not invisible to me. A feeling I am all to familiar with. Apparently thats one of the most attractive things- it seems men are just as insecure as we are. The problem lies in the transition – this is what I never get right. I can begin to see why transitions of power are the most delicate and vulnerable place to be. There is this millisecond when you no longer realize who is leading and who should be leaving. That night I found that moment and yes the only way to describe it is like the flip of a switch. The next morning everything seemed to hurt, especially inside. (I’m fine btw, nothing happened lol). But that is the case for me more often then not I hold myself responsible for the actions of others, I find I am stumbling thru the dark saying excuse me and I’m sorry each time I bump into someone. But the truth is no one else should be in the room but me. I need no longer apologize for my wants, my needs or even sometimes my words as imperfect as they can be, as long as they are true and said with care, respect and when needed love they can’t be wrong. That’s what my mama says anyway – taking care of yourself can never be selfish. At the core of it, that’s what I learned these last 15 days. I am never wrong when I am giving myself care, love and space.

I’ve had a very difficult year. By the way I count from Sept- Sept. So much of life was birthed and burned in that time that it is the Monday the week starts with and not Sunday. Sometimes these digressions or explanations confuse my thoughts and I forget what I wanted to really say. Ok no I got it…I spent most of this year begging to be loved by very specific people. Like a man lost in the desert willing to drink sand. Turns out I need to love myself that is what I should be begging for. What I should revolve my life around right now, is loving myself, showing myself what that actually means and looks like so I can detect the counterfeit so much easier. Did you know that’s how currency experts are trained. They learn, feel and absorb everything about real currency so that the false one becomes instantly recognizable. My dumbass did the complete opposite. Like Runaway Bride- I was convinced that I would find the eggs I love based on the eggs they loved.

Selfish might need to be my word for the year. Not in the derogatory way we seem to have attached to it but in the way that I feel free to stop and fill my lungs without permission. Where my ownership is only to myself and not the needs, wants of others, even those I hold in the highest esteem. They’ll still love me I think, I believe, I hope. My prayer is that in doing this I will be better able to love them. My mama also taught me that. For so many years she ran around without air leaving the oxygen mask free for me, (I have siblings but I wouldn’t dare to presume they’re insights, they have varied from mine in almost all aspects I would be unwise to think this is different) the problem is my hands were to little to reach up and so air eluded me too. Now I can see her mask secured around her own face and her hands free and calm to help me with mine….even at this age she gives me life. Loving and being loved by her has been a privilege, learning this from her has been a blessing, hoping to enact it with my children will be a gift.

Alright we still have to talk Rome but honestly, he needs his own post. Yes it’s a he to me, he is abrupt and change full, he is full of pride and boastfulness.

I am tired from the step out of my head and into my heart that has taken place these last few hours. I leave you with this. It’s a phrase I heard and they are the words I find myself needing to repeat.

“I am open to reinterpreting that”. I am giving myself the space to be wrong, even about trying to be right. I don’t want to stay closed because of fear I want to be open, reinterpreting is just a scupper in a balcony waiting to drain the water.

Buongiorno for you and Buen Notte for me.

September 15, 2022
The Call Within

I have this habit of allowing music so deeply into my life that it has become the loudly silent narrator. I don’t necessarily regret it. I think the way I connect to music is beautiful, I think the way I can sometimes allow it to take over is dangerous and often times reckless.

Im leaving my chateau today and so much of me wants one more day, one more sunset. Because I can’t have one,I instead find myself out in the courtyard with just the vines for company. I press play and she begins her aria in my ear. I am desperately trying to snapshot this moment and this feeling of bliss and freedom.

I have an answer to give when I return but I’m still so unsure what it’s going to be. Time such a cruel ruler, she brings about change and then stalls by changing time zones and creating a vortex of emotion. Every thing heightened.

Last year I had the opportunity to go to Turkey, and it was an amazing experience. It was filled with firsts and awareness and dare I say forgiveness. It left an impression on my heart to say the least.

Soon after returning I saw a film about Turkey during the ottoman empire when it was Anatolia. It described a love story set against a war torn country. Nothing new there, but while watching I was once again confronted with the amount of things people do in the name of their “God”.

Complete destruction and disregard for life. Somehow I can’t bring myself to love, adore, and revere a God that would do that…and yet don’t I?

I can already feel my mother cringing in her chair (I think). Yet when I look at the examples of the Bible where this “destruction” took place it was always at the hands of God, perhaps he used messengers to convey and advise repentance but he did not put the match in their hand. Noah, Joseph, Lot. These were all men chosen in a time of deep depravity.

I can see us sinking back into that depravity and I wonder what now? He promised to never end the world by flood again, but isn’t there a loophole in that very statement.

There is something so disconcerting about being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and which any attempt on the side of the residents to speak is met with criticism. At first I thought it was an American thing. But in truth I am finding that more and more it’s a cultural thing. The French are obsessed with preserving the past. There are things they continue to do that have either been industrialized or at the very least faster ways of doing it are available but it will cause them to forget their past. Their history their heritage

The same film brought another lovely example. As Americans we are taught to believe we are the greatest in the world but that thought that seems far from true.

The rest of the world remains in constant watch. Yes perhaps it’s true that we have innovated more than any country in the technological sense but the truth is we are quite far behind in the human sense.

In the film the Armenians are fighting the Turks. Muslim v orthodox Christian, caught on the middle is an American hospital. There is a mini monologue in the film when a man of the Turkish military says to the hospital director.

“When your lands were still swamp and grass we had lit up the world for thousands of years, and when you fall like Rome and Greece. And you will fall, we will still be here”

I think this is the core of the French and their unwillingness to change. They know the world and ways they live are sustainable. They will grow slowly so they can guarantee the progress and growth. As much as I hate not being able to communicate or the fact that there are certain amenities that i must do without, somehow I remain in a state of reverence for their diligence and stubborn ways and in some ways so is every American that has been willing to brave the discomfort and visit this spectacular country.

Im still nervous and uncomfortable every time I have to go to a restaurant and ask for a table or a menu, a drink or a damn breath of fresh air so instead I plan to learn as much French as I can so the next time I set myself upon the terroir of the countryside I can enjoy every moment and change my fear to fun.

In the meantime I suppose a French boy would do just fine.

September 12, 2021
Eau de Vie

Eau de vie

I keep starting things and then I get stuck. I think it’s because I keep writing about things that are not the heart of the matter.

Today I had the opportunity to visit a cognac distillery. I splurged so I could have as much of the experience as possible. While I hope to be able to return to all my destinations nothing is promised and so I’ve stopped saying “next time”.

The experience itself was magnificent. There are so many things in this world to see and know. Having the opportunity to see how this unique brandy is made was for me priceless. Not simply for the experience but for the wisdom it imparted.

While describing the distillation process the guide continued to mention the “heart” of the alcohol are what they are after. They will take the time of multiple distillations to gather up as much of the vapors as they can. They take these and after hanging in barrels for decades they bottle them in glass jars and wrap them with wicker. Once they do this the liquid inside freezes in time. It no longer ages or deepens in flavor profile, intensity etc. the very things that age wine do nothing for this French liquor.

That’s what was replaying in my head over and over. The heart. Had I unknowingly placed my heart in a jar preventing it from aging or growing in depth.

The tour continued and we reached one of the final steps…blending ( I realize I didn’t give other steps…get your ass to France and find out the others). In this step these masters who have a catalogue of senses then decide which hearts are best together, not just for taste but continuity. All the bottles must remain the same, which means there is a delicate balance to be made with each bottle.Sounds like marriage if you ask me.

I have spent so many years in search of a heart that will blend and elevate me while also letting my strengths elevate them. Let’s get some prospective on this endeavor.

These men, these master blenders spend so many years refining their palate. Once they have risen thru the ranks but before they become a true “master” they must spend a minimum of 10 yrs, perhaps 15 working under another. Further they don’t do anything but observe for the first three yrs. Can you even imagine ?

Choosing that career isn’t really a choice is it? It’s a need, a desire, a passion and those require dévouement absolu!

All this is done for something that we consume. The only tangible thing is the name and the buildings that make them otherwise this thing that they dedicate their lives to will eventually be consumed or how about this; there is a “heart” in those cellars that 8 generations have all tasted. Each one knowing that the fruit of which they will never taste. Makes me think of that quote.

“ society grows when men plant trees under which shade they will never sit. That is continuity that is honor, that is love.

Here’s the thing once these men decide this is the life they have chosen and thru all the years of training and beyond their “job” is in actuality their life. Their palate is now the source of their life in many ways.

They can no longer do anything that could jeopardize it such as begin to smoke, change their diet etc. They, like the hearts must be frozen in time.

I have always struggled with my emotional self. I have seen it for so long as a weakness because of the way others have interpreted it. I have been blessed to have a good friend who has allowed me the space to be that emotional but always taking each opportunity to remind me of my strength, never negating my tears but rather seeing them as the fuel that propels my heart.

I am a master blender of hearts. I can create fictional intoxicating moments that transcend time, never aging but rather remaining pure. The problem? Well I haven’t found the heart to blend with my own yet. I work diligently to remove the predispositions I have to a certain life realizing that in truth I am moving thru time and space with no external direction. It must be the heart that leads, even if I can’t fully trust it’s wicked ways.

The question for me is what is the action or rather the next practical step to take.

Time for another digression although i feel that word is unfair. My digressions are usually pivotal to the story.

There is a film I love. It’s one man in a car for 90 minutes and in that actual time we see his life implode. At some point after he has shared difficult news with his wife he quickly asks her in the midst of her sadness and disappointment what the practical next step is. This thought process seems vital. We have these emotions within us that at times can direct our actions which are usually full of rage, disappointment and sadness. When what is needed often times is pragmatism. Hence men; they are annoyingly practical at times.

I have placed instead my illogical ways in those glass jars and retrieved my heart. I know that doing this will bring a certain amount of pain and uncertainty but I think I’m finally and truly realizing, that is the joy of life. To have experiences that we think will break us and soon we find that they have not. Instead they have sharpened our senses.

I am not truly in charge of my life and what it will one day look like. There are roads I will take that will be wrong but because I have allowed my heart to age I will be able to “re-center” and somehow find my way back to the path intended wherever that might be. I am done being the GPS I will be the little car on the screen taking turns and missing directions.

By the way the title name it’s what they call cognac when it’s reached the end and is finally ready to be poured.

I was recently asked how I was still single. My response now echoing in my head. “ I haven’t found the man who cannot see his life without me”.

When I finally blend my heart with another it will be my eau de vie. The water of my life, unable to live without it. I pray for my loved ones and the support I will need but if it is not offered….tant pis.

September 8, 2021
Silent T

It has been longer than I should have allowed to fly solo again. I wish I knew why, perhaps the answer will come before the inevitable flight home. In the meantime I find myself lovingly wrapped in the arms of the stars. I have changed so much since that first trip not that many years ago. Let’s get to story time, I’m sure the mushy will come.

I’m not sure why I chose France, could be my love of wine, bread, cheese etc.. but I think more I wanted the quiet of the countryside. Those who know me (not really a pre-requisite), know that I prefer the country to a city. I like to see what God created, not necessarily man. Part of that comes from the close proximity of others in these endeavors, I like being alone. Wait did I just say that, hmm. Interesting to me only probably, but I have spent so much of my life crying out for a companion and yet solitude has always been my favorite. So much to speculate, still so many wounds and narratives I need to heal. Anyways…..

So France..not Versailles, not Paris but France. I like driving, it’s most likely the remnants of living in a city that requires a car to get absolutely anything. Years and I mean years ago when AirB&B first hit the scene I remember a conversation with my brother where he predicted its success because as he said visiting a place is a different experience to “living” in a place. I think this has influenced the way I do my solo trips.I like to pick countries that have vast landscape I can travel across by motorway, stopping when the desire or the view demands. I love B&B’s, I never feel as alone as sometimes I really am (this reminds me of my nephew Skyy- I remember one time he asked me to come over and then proceeded to spend all his time in his room, when I was leaving he got sad and I said to him why do you want me to be here if you’re just going to be in your room, his response…. “I just like knowing you’re here” , B&B ‘s give me exactly that. (Good to know my ability to digress is still intact).

During this trip I have a mix of stays, AirB&B’s, Hotels, and Chateaus. I have just begun but I can already see how the different offerings will allow me to experience more than just vacation, but home.I am currently making my way down to the South of France, but the first stop had to be Bordeaux. My wine addiction definitely made this decision. I am sitting on the balcony of my “Gite” staring out into nothingness and above to the stars that remind me just how far I am from the lights of “home”. I say home like that because I’m not sure what that really means to me. (Side note: Sometimes I think of these writings as a conversation I’m having with a friend so I’ll answer questions I think you would ask lol).

A few years ago my mother introduced me to the idea of having a word for the year. This word would be something I worked on (I think). There are questions you ask yourself and the word is supposed to come to you. I’ve done it before but it’s never been as passively active as it was this year. Along with the word I created a vision board. Again something I’ve never seen the fruit of but it was always a way I could bond with my mother so the effort was always worth it. At the beginning of this year as I went about looking for the images that would be displayed each day on my board, I came across a word I had hidden away.

Hiraeth (n) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was, the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.

FYI this might not be the technical definition but the truth is every single word was meant for me to see together. One of the reasons I take these trips at the same time every year is because many many many years ago I lost some things very precious to me, the last remnant of love. Every time I take these trips I am deep in Hiraeth. I felt so seen, so free when I saw a word for the things I had carried for so many years. The tricky part ? My word of the year that followed…”Relinquish”. How could I ? How could I relinquish that which I had allowed to be imprinted not only on my heart but my body. I realize I have spent so many years looking for “a home which maybe never was”.

When I went to Ireland the first time I visited this small island that was just a garden. There was this high tower at the top of the island that during the war was used by soldiers as a lookout. Since it was high on the island that meant quite a few stairs, I mean a lot actually. But something pushed me to go up and so I did, when I reached the top and climbed the turret to the lookout I was confronted with all the emotional weight I had brought up with me and soon the tears began to roll down my face. I don’t know how to stop grieving. I think because it isn’t just people I grieve but what the loss meant for my future. I have remained with my heart frozen, allowing mistreatment, perhaps because I felt I deserved it (I’m good now…I think), but more I felt it was a way to not confront the fact that I truly believed my chance for love and happiness had gone. I left a part of my grief there on that turret that day, trying to reopen my heart, to return hope to my minds eye. Every time I have touched soil without them I have left a piece of them there. Yet as I sit nestled on my perch looking out into the darkness I realized I don’t need to leave them behind, I can carry them with me…forever. It’s the doubt, the fear, the hopelessness that should not be allowed to return.

I imagine much like grief this will come in stages but I think the next few weeks might be a good place to start. I can’t promise I’ll take you guys along for all of it. Unfortunately there are still things only God, a man who betrayed me and I know and for now I think that’s ok.

I can hear my mother “your only as sick as your secrets”. Hmm maybe thats true, but I think it depends heavily on what you consider a secret versus experiences in life that you hold tight to your chest because perhaps they were meant only for you.

Funny side note, many moons ago I found myself in the country of my birth attempting to heal my body and my heart. In a car ride with my father whom I had been “estranged” from for probably just as many years told me something interesting about secrets. He said in his mind there was no such thing. He said people believe a secret is something you have hidden. A secret can’t be shared, when it is it loses its status as a secret; someone else now knows.

I wonder who is right- perhaps they both are. Perhaps there are things we need to say out loud so we can let them go, other times there are things we need to relinquish to God because in truth he is the only one that can comfort a heart….I just said that and yet I don’t know if I believe it; the comforting part. I feel like people will say any good, positive feeling is from God and I get the thought process but when I sob, when my body shakes because I can’t control the emotion that seems to be pouring out of every pore, where is my comfort? I stop crying because at some point my body becomes exhausted my eyes heavy and my mind weary.

Is that God? I don’t know that living beings can answer this so I am left to decide to accept the assumption or not.

One of the struggles of these writings are that they usually occur late at night when all you can heart are the crickets and the cicadas, when the side of the world I’m on is sleeping as should I. Yet writing these things out is usually the melatonin I need to relinquish my hold on the day and close my eyes. I fear every morning waking without them and yet I fear the morning I will not awake just as much.

I have a fondness for quotes, I used to love when I would hear someone quote a book, person, poetry etc. I thought how amazing it would be to have the words, phrases of the greatest poets imprinted in my mind, ready to recall at any moment. Back in 2007 I started a notepad that kept all my favorite quotes, thru the years I have added and its growth has always thrilled me. I can’t quote them but I find that when the occasion arises I remember the “remnants” of one and quickly scroll to find it. Today there were many and yet only one that remained.

My love and grief has always been a difficult thing to share. Perhaps because I was so young when I lost them but more because love like energy can never be destroyed it has simply changed it’s form.

Death ends a life, not a relationship.
-Mitch Albom

Happy Birthday and Bonne Nuit

September 5, 2021
Teenage Love
We left Istanbul this morning. I was sad to leave not because the city itself had left me speechless but because the experience had. I have never believed in the statement “Travel expands your horizons” more than I have on this trip. I came to a predominantly Muslim country. Filled with Mosques and women covered from head to toe. Coming from a place like America heck even my country of Colombia this was a foreign experience and concept. My last post I discussed the staring that I have experienced. As I mentioned I attempted to attribute positive intent but I the cynical perhaps American part of me remained unsure. As we emerged ourself in the city for the final time, I found myself engaging more with the idea that the staring these men were doing was actually communication. The women here are covered with only their eyes exposed. Because of the time we are living in where masks and distance is the norm, we are just beginning to experience what it is to communicate our feelings with just our eyes. They have been doing this for quite a bit of time.

Segue- not so smooth but it doesn’t matter, the air is growing cold and this has to come out. I believe in God…and Jesus, this is a vital addition. I am roaming a land that believes that latter to just be a man, a man that I hold as God made into man. I come from a place that claims to hold those beliefs as tenants of its existence (we wont get into the technical part that America was founded by Deists), yet again I find that a people who are considered to not know the truth and a brutal, hierarchal structure show more reverence in any given day than most of us can muster on a Sunday morning. They will know you by your fruits it says and yet I have found more crisp red apples here than I have found even in my own church. No I’m not converting, but how can I call myself a child of God if I can’t even love or even honor those who haven’t yet had the truth of God revealed to them. Has it been so long for so many of us since we stood in the dark that we can’t be willing to allow the stumbles of those who keep falling down steps and tripping. Have we…neigh have I become so arrogant that I believe that God can’t use others to teach me or rather lift the mirror and reveal that the love that I claim to have for my Savior is not even evident. Do you know what it is to stop what your doing five times a day, cleanse yourself and kneel on holy ground and pray, be it in trouble, gratitude, fear…etc. I stopped to think of the connection between all these Muslims that are all kneeling and praying at these same time each day every day, it seems in a way the truest since of flooding the throne with prayers. Connecting them as we are called to be the body of Christ, separate and yet connected. But how do we reflect it….the simple answer is we don’t. Please don’t confuse me again no one here is converting, I know the truth of the God I serve and the Jesus I love and the Holy Spirit that guides me but the point I am working towards is that loving God and accepting his gift doesn’t mean that gratitude, honor and reverence is no longer required, if we are honest….it should come even more freely.

Let’s move the romantic portion of this post, mostly because as mentioned I’m starting to freeze my booty cakes and I want to write this before it buries itself deep within me, informing me as so much of the negative has. I met an man during these travels, this isn’t uncommon for me. Ive been told that my eyes are powerful and I can be very communicative with them and I guess thats accurate since day two I received my first marriage proposal.

My mom taught me this real cool thing about starting the year with a word. Its meant to be found after prayerful consideration. this year my word was self-care. I assumed that meant get more massages, don’t take myself too serious and feel free to say no. However kind of late in the year a phrase became apparent to me and it began to inform the way I work with people, the way I travel and most importantly the way I love. “This will either be a great love, or a great lesson”. This has proved to be truth for me in Istanbul. I was shown such love and tenderness and when I compared it against the coarse sexual nature of the American man that is my reference I realize just how much I am actually missing. Alas I this is not my home and soon a plane will take me back to the walls I’ve built and he won’t be there with me. I don’t even know if I need him there but I needed the lesson he was willing to provide me. At dinner tonight I was talking to my friend and we were discussing the correspondence and she made a comment “but you believe in love at first sight right”. It took me aback for a moment…I did believe that…I do believe that, but I also know my tendency to love more than my other half. For now I am enjoying this teenage love, filled with proclamations, flowers, kisses on eye lids and walks along the sea wall. I don’t want this moment to end and while I am still on this side of the world it lives and feeds me.

I want to continue to prostrate myself before you all, bearing my soul and all its fears and insecurities and yet somehow I want to save them. I want to share them with someone who holds my hands as we cross the street and holds my gaze, reading in my eyes the things that perhaps I can’t say or worse I don’t even know are within. This doesnt mean the end of my blog or even the end of the transparency I have started with those closest but rather the understanding that a partner is the one…because I do believe in that will be the one worthy of hearing them as he tucks my hair behind my ear and caresses my face when he hears the sadness that has rocked my core.

Do you remember burning CD’s. Downloading songs and creating these awesome mixes. Do you remember creating entire new CD’s just to add one or two songs that you just couldn’t stop listening to. I do that for my trips, luckily its as easy as adding songs to a playlist and downloading for offline listening. I have so many but the ones for each of my travels connect with memories and no matter how the song comes on I can remember them and even hear in my head the next song on the playlist. As I sit on the rooftop looking out at the city below with my “Let’s talk Turkey” I realize that the songs on there, the love ones at least are reflective of the hours he and I shared together…all I can seem to say ‘would you take the wings from birds so that they cant fly, would you take the oceans roar and leave just a sigh. All this your heart wont let you do, this what I beg of you, don’t take your love from me’. I’m not saying I’m in love (insert Hercules song) but rather for a bit longer I want to bathe in someone else loving me more than I can currently reciprocate.

I think for tonight thats enough. There are more stories to tell and just a few more short nights in which to tell them. Be patient with me as I balance my happiness with the need to relive these stories via this medium. In the mean time I leave you with a few photos from our time in Istanbul before I take you to Cappadocia.
September 21, 2020