treading lightly
here we are
like an eternal scar
reminding me of just how far
i’ve come and still must continue…
this lifetime of me
and all that it brings
the pain, the stings,
and the faith the feeds and finds me through…
this month y’all, is one of many things for me, the biggest is the reckoning with time as well as tragedy, the remembering of where we were, who we were, and how i got here…
here as in this place where i finally have ease and grace, this place where i prioritize my own space and what it is i know i need, and allowing it all to be as it finds me, frees me, continues to call me to. i can see the trail as well as trials that brought me here. here in this chair. here in the care. here in my very own master-course mastering this thing they say we’re born with, my peace.
11 years.
the space between me and then. the space between me and them. and this curiosity of wow wow wow how did i make it to another day? another way? another season upon season without you?
sometimes i wonder if i ever really knew life, before death, as i do now?
the way there is no guarantee.
the way there is such fragility to everything we are and do.
the way you are not promised the next breath or day and yet here it is right in front of my nose and fueling my body all the way to my head, system, spirit and toes.
this presence and present moment that I have and yet where does it go?
for me, I never really thought about it till it became the only thing I could muster, the only thing I could hold, the rawest realization that all can be gone, all of it can go, in an instant as well as in an eternity, lost, gone, no absolutes. how those hours and days and years led to a finale that I wish to this day we never knew…
death has gifted me an insight I don’t think any other teacher could or can. teaching me how in an instant it all can instantly be gone. and also, how it did not just come to be. there is a layering, a synergy, of all that is and all we are impacting, interceding, interweaving the very lives we live as well as death, resurrection, and even destiny.
it’s amazing.
just how interwoven we are.
and yet, i wonder when did it become so?
for a 11 years ago i was in a pit and place just beggin’ for some sort of saving grace, my feelings all over the place, as me and my mama found our space, returning like rituals and spells of hope on the telephone as we would whisper the words it cannot get any worse than this and yet it did, it has, and very much could continue.
I remember when I believed that it couldn’t - it wouldn’t - no way no how could it be worse than this - worse than a father’s long and losing battle of mental health and worth, addicted to the very thing he wanted to be free from, the dependency on the bottle, the tether to the ideas that we could run and hide and deny the very hurt deep within his cells, his soul, his story…
our story. i believed the pleas and pushing away would be the very things he needed to wake up, get clear, and come home. home as in his true self. his real self. his free self. in my 26 years of life with him I sometimes wonder if I ever got to know who that was? and did he? for what I do know of my dad is that his life was hard and unjust from the very beginning… but, I didn’t know the degree and dynamics of his own pain and shames and all the ways the worlds to blame until his breath and my moms were no more…
or that she would ever have the heart and strength to leave, part of me sometimes believes she was on her way out, she was on her way through the very doors and days that took her life away, but, in this reckoning and remembering, I know, we know, she chose to stay, as many do.
these patterns pulse and press into my very own chest and I sometimes wonder how my heart continues to rise and rest, beat with my breath, for once it felt like there wasn’t anything left and yet, here I am, July 1st yet again, this time 2024 knowing I now know more than I ever did before and how I hope to use it.
in retrospection it is a divine and timely lesson to love myself first and then see the ways I limited that love, or maybe even didn’t listen to that love, or maybe my love was so loud that it needed to push away the man that I thought was creating the chaos at hand, at home, but I now feel I never would have left him alone… if I could go back I would only open my heart more… be gentler, be a reflection to my dad that he is worthy of more than he’s had and also damn dad, open your heart and eyes to all that’s here, all that you have, all that you had, all that loves you.
and for my mom, oh I would have never let her leave my side, but, is that a life we’d want to know and ride? stuck in the very freezing and folding of our own anger, our own triggers, our own fear?
it’s amazing to know that in the timeline of growth I have traveled through sorrows some will never know and somehow, someway, made it here…
here to this day that still takes a little bit of my breath a way, and yet in the awareness I find myself breathing more deeply, slowly, and savoring it fully through.
I will tread lightly these days, and truly I have been anyway, a way where I can move with the tides, breathe with the feelings, and remember their multidimensional truths. lightly in the sense of Sacredness, gentleness, and an illumination that continues to call me, wake me, even at times displace me, on this every changing life that I know will one day be through.
and before that time does come I hope with all my heart that I contribute to the sum, the synergy, the totality of all we can become… what I hope to give is the fullest permission to live in a way that sometimes only death can give… a way of life beyond dependency and strife, a way where none of us have to rest in the distress of this has to be as bad as it gets, I just want us to live in a way they never did,
free from the very things that perpetuate what pain brings
and finally knowing the wings of our own freedom right at the back of our heart.
these 11 years for me have been filled with ceasing of cycles, ending of old eras, and resurrecting the parts of me long lost, abandoned, and denied. from my own reconciling of the ways I stayed in places of abuse and my dependency on alcohol for confidence and coping - those cycles have died and I am in a place and positioning today where I can finally say I know and feel my free - and it is my greatest honor and hope to always always always be a gentle reminder that each of us are worthy of knowing our peace - each of us worthy of living fully in this now - each of us worthy of healing wounds and returning to wonder.
I wish I had had this strength and clarity then and with them…
but I do now.
and maybe just maybe,
that’s what really matters.
curious dear friend and reader,
how are you entering this 7th month of our calendar year?
my truest hope and wish is that you are prioritizing your needs, your peace, your healing, your joy, and loving the totality of you.
this is our medicine.
we are our medicine.
please know,
I love you and I am proud of you.
-keri
friendly reminder, outdoor yoga at Russell’s blueberry farm begins this Sunday (7/7) at 6pm. One of my mama’s most favorite things to do was picking blueberries. How blessed am i to continue the sweetness and share this sanctuary alongside you, the blueberry bushes, and her beautiful spirit.