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There are times when, at an utter loss to do anything else, I find I must write.

So often is this the case when issues arise concerning my other home, India, because while born on American soil, my heart bleeds a mixture of Indian and American blood.

 

My father’s oldest brother, my Uncle Ashok, passed away after a long struggle with COVID-19. I understand now the feelings of helplessness family members grapple with watching their loved ones fight against such an isolating virus. I understand it on two dimensions—the helplessness of not being able to be at your loved one’s bedside coupled with the helplessness of hearing the news of loss from a distance that spans an ocean.

 

I will never understand the bravery, the courage, the inundation of emotions that must have consumed my father and his family when he made the choice to settle in America with hopes of giving back to those he loved . What I do understand is the way my father’s heart still lives in India, his home country, the way his smile relaxes and his whole body lightens when his feet touch Delhi clay. Because my heart also lives in India, my smile too is echoed on the faces of those with darker skin than I, my body too lightens as the scents of spices, masala, chai, cumin, turmeric, cardamom waft through the air that is composed of the same matter as the air I breathe in Mississippi. It is like when I was born my roots embedded themselves in both countries—India and America—and so I still feel the tug toward my Eastern home, I still feel a sense of displacement when I am not there.

 

My Uncle Ashok will be remembered for his gentle humbleness, his easy humor, his compassion and dutiful and loyal heart. I think fondly of trips to India as a child, seeing Ashok and my other family in the airport. I think of chai in cups and hot matthis, the salty and crumbly snack my grandmother made. I think of rooftops on buildings with my cousins, flowers in cracked pots and Delhi fog blurring the horizon. I think of my Uncle the first time I tried pan from a roadside stand, its bitter leaf staining my palm. I think of his sideways hugs, his large framed glasses, his soothing voice and the unmistakable resemblance to my father, the unmistakable resemblance to myself–confirming our place as Anands in this world, a name which stems from the Sanskrit word for bliss.

 

And so, Ashok Anand, it is not with sorrow but with bliss that I remember your life. It is not with pain but with joy that I celebrate your soul passing from this life into the next. And it is not goodbye, but rather “see you on the other side”, where no amount of ocean or miles can separate us from one another.

 

For so long I’ve abused you,

misused you,

poisoned you.

I didn’t trust you,

and I lost my right to listen to you.

You tried to teach me and tell me when things weren’t right,

But I kept infusing you with vices to make you silent.

I’ve broken you down by working you harder than you were meant to go–

Denying you food and water,

abusing chemicals to silence your begs for fuel.

I didn’t want to feel the soreness of my muscles telling me to rest,

Or the way you whispered to me to slow my steps.

I didn’t listen to your wisdom to just

listen to my breath

And find the wisdom hidden

between the inhalation

and exhalation that’s so intrinsic.

I sped the beating of your heart

To make the calories fall off

And keep you alert throughout the night,

to ward off anything that might

try to creep in unseen by light.

I squeezed you,

held you in hands so tight,

Tried to make you disappear behind

Bones that broke

because I didn’t give them enough:

I kept pushing you through five-mile runs

In shoes with holes that scraped my heels

Leaving blisters

–signs that maybe I should just heal.

Instead I kept pushing through

Thinking band-aids could confuse you;

I stifled your voice,

I didn’t listen when you told me you had enough,

When you didn’t give consent

for the stuff

I poured down my throat;

When you gagged and choked–

I just kept pouring more

To try to make you understand:

I couldn’t listen to your demands.

I numbed you with anything I could find

(Clear liquids were a good disguise);

Sometimes you didn’t know to fight

Until I’d already swallowed

and made the call

To blunt your shout to hear you out.

You wore the battle scars

On knees and teeth,

Trying to find some easy way

To deal with the pain.

“No pain, no gain”—

Indeed, I gained shame,

Collected words like “vain,”

Told I am the only one to blame.

 

Lord, I am drained.

 

I see my hands:

Hands that heal

The broken bones of other bodies

The bulging discs and radiculopathy

Hands that lend themselves

To fragile men

And women weak

From conceiving.

My feet have left

Footprints in sand,

And lands across the Atlantic;

My legs have marched

For things I believe:

Peace and freedom and equality.

 

How can I keep neglecting these?

 

I’ve watched you grow

So I know I can too.

I can learn to stop abusing you.

See your scars as proof I’m strong,

Fill your head with words and songs

That touch the spirit that you house.

For you are the thing that protects

The divine within me—

The universal intellect,

The love that connects.

 

Dear body, I’m learning to accept.

 

 

 

I just celebrated my 31^st birthday. It’s crazy to think that it’s been ten years since I celebrated turning 21, because I remember my 21^st birthday like it was yesterday (to an extent). A Tuesday night in Nashville, dinner at, of all places, Chili’s, begging the waitress to card me when she failed to. Gigi’s cupcakes, then off to our favorite bar, Sportsman’s, where I attempted to complete a list of shot to do’s that, at the time, seemed so innocent. How things have changed.

 

As I sit here, I recognize there has been this pull in me to write something raw. I know exactly what I have to write about, what the universe is asking me to say, but I’ve avoided putting it out there for so long because my pride and ego are tough mother f-ers and they usually end up winning the battle. But as I sit here about to enter into a new year, I sense this freedom that will come when I write the words I’ve been wanting to write for so long. And for someone who feels that she’s created her own prison, freedom sounds absolutely divine.

 

I am in recovery from addiction.

 

To some of you reading this, this may explain so much. To some of you, it may come as a complete shock. To some of you, you may automatically change the way you think of me. I am ok with all of that. Addiction is something I’ve struggled to understand myself, so I can’t blame anyone else who has trouble understanding it. It is a disease that causes one to be full of denial, to lie when honesty was always a core value, to hide, to manipulate, to hurt loved ones, not intentionally, but because admitting addiction is one of the hardest things to do. Especially when you’ve spent your life trying to prove to the world that you’ve got things figured out. Remember what I said about ego and pride?

 

There’s a million ways I could go about telling you this fact about me: I’m an addict. I have a disease. I’m addicted. But I choose to say I’m in recovery, because the other labels don’t sit right with me.

 

Here’s the thing: words mean something to me. I grew up playing with words, using them to paint my feelings, using them to figure myself out. Words mean a lot to me. So for me, personally, I am Asha. I am not a label. I am not what you think when you hear that label. I am so much more, and my story is so much deeper, and there is so much more beyond those words, those labels.

 

The truth is, my life has taken turn after turn that I never expected. It’s like I got in the car with a destination in mind, but somewhere along the way someone else took over driving, and before I knew it, I ended up in towns I never expected to land in, on roads I never thought I’d travel. It’s been frightening and exhilarating and quite frankly, confusing as hell. But I am making my way back to the highway, back to where I always intended to go.

 

I’m learning to appreciate the journey, and to let go a little of the destination. I like to have a destination—it gives me security, stability, something to work toward. But I don’t want to be so caught up in where I’m going that I lose out on all the scenery on the way.

 

So back to that statement, the one I have dreaded putting out there for so long. I am in recovery from addiction. There’s so much to this story, so many details I can’t share right now, but just writing it feels freeing. Owning up to the roadblocks I’ve encountered feels liberating. Acceptance means coming to peace with what is. My ‘what is’ isn’t what I’d choose, but it happened, and it affected those I love, and it nearly drove me insane. But out of this pain and turmoil, out of the confusion, the victim mindset, the why me, the anger, the pride, the denial and withdrawal, the isolation, the misery, the times I cried out for someone, something to save me—out of all of that has come surrender. And with surrender has come so much more.

 

Rumi said, “the wound is the place where the light enters you.” If that’s true, I’ve got a light as big as the sun entering me. At times this wound has felt too much to bear, that there would be nothing to cover it up, that nothing would help me heal. At times I felt so much despair and hopelessness that I didn’t know if it was worth fighting. I wondered if I should just give up, succumb to this fate. But if I’ve learned anything, it is that I am a fighter. And that it’s the darkest nights which allow for the brightest stars.

 

Part of why I’ve held back from admitting this is the fear of what others would think of me. I fear what my family halfway across the world will think. What past mentors, teachers, friends will think. What all those strangers who saw me at my worst in addiction will think. We’re living in a world where more people understand addiction, where it is not such a taboo subject. But at the same time, stigmas still exist. And I can’t blame those who view addiction as a malady they are grateful not to have. Before I came to realize addiction was part of my life, I viewed addicts as less -than, as people without willpower, as failures, as the homeless man with a brown bag under the bridge. Now I realize the error of my judgments. That even the homeless man with a brown bag under the bridge has a heart and a brain and a story and a life. That addiction does not discriminate. That some of the kindest, bravest souls I’ve met are those in the rooms of recovery.

 

Without addiction, I’d lack the sense of surrender that I’m finding every day. This painful existence has led me to reconnect with a power greater than myself. I grew up learning about God. I learned about the Christian God in church, the one who sent Jesus to save me from my sins. I learned about the Hindu God from my father’s family in India, the one with many different manifestations, the one that came alive in chants and in the colorful traditions of an ancient faith. I learned that for me, these Gods are the same. I learned that, for me, God is found within each one of us, deep in our truest self, the light that connects us to each other, the thread that binds our souls.

 

My addiction has taught me that we are all equal. I always prided myself on my visions of equality. That I belonged to a multicultural family—I thought in a way this made me superior. That I could understand diversity and inclusion better than others. I wrongly believed that I was less prejudiced, less biased, less selfish. In the throes of addiction, I learned through my flaws that no one is superior. That our imperfections, our mistakes, the things that make us human are what connect us. Our vulnerabilities, the things we fear about ourselves, our deepest secrets—these are the things that, when brought to the light, expose our humanness and make us relatable. When I let down my guard, when I tell my story and my truth, when I take off my masks and let others in—this is when I find peace with who I am. This is when I add value to life. When I find purpose and meaning in my journey here on Earth.

 

Don’t get me wrong. Addiction comes with mistakes that I wish I could take back. There are probably hundreds of people I owe apologies to. I’ve made some of these apologies, and to those that have heard me and accepted me and forgiven me, I can’t tell you how much it means. It has taught me forgiveness in a way I never knew before. To those who I have yet to apologize to, please know that from the very bottom of my heart, I am immensely sorry for the pain I have caused. For the confusion and elusiveness of my actions. They say in recovery that one of the best things you can do is to make your life a living amends. This is what I intend to do from here on out, in my actions, in the things I do, in the way I live my life.

 

There is so much more to speak on with this subject. And I intend to. I’ve opened the door, and to be honest, I’m scared as hell to be this bold. It’s taken me time to be brave enough to put this out into the open, but as I’ve meditated and thought on this over the last several days, I know in my heart that it is what I am being called to do. If, in my vulnerability, I can offer hope to one other soul, then this has all been worth it.

 

More to come. In the meantime, know that we all struggle with something. My battle is not one I’d choose, but I’m learning to deal with the cards I’ve been dealt with, and I hope to make meaning out of some of my darkest days. Know that by loving yourself and accepting where you are in life, you have the power to change heartache into healing. You have the opportunity to connect to something greater, to shed your skin and emerge transformed. Be brave and courageous and fight for what you know to be true. Surrender to what is, and be bold in your actions. Life is a journey that is meant to be enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I spent twenty minutes researching the best French fries. (By Google’s standards, Arby’s takes the win—I don’t know about you, but this one really threw me for a loop.)

I don’t normally eat fast food – I’d like to say it’s because I naturally favor healthier and fresher foods, but the reality is it probably has something to do with all that emotional scarring I got as a kid from the embarrassment of having my mom order McDonald’s Happy Meals ‘hold-the-meat’ style. (Growing up vegetarian in Mississippi in the early 90’s ain’t no small feat to overcome).

I knew that if I was going to face some childhood fears, those fries better be damn worth it. You see, I have this fear of being rejected or judged by every and anyone. My family. My friends. My co-workers. The woman handing me my fries through the drive-through window.

My fear of being judged or rejected stems from my own insecurities. And the lies and questions I tell and ask myself about my worth: “I’m not good enough.” “What’s wrong with me?” “Why does nothing ever work out the way I want it to?”  

The trouble with holding onto these beliefs, aside from the fact that it can be a barrier between my mouth and steaming, hot, salty French fries, is that when I hold onto negative thought patterns, I create resistance.

And when I create resistance, I block positive things from entering my life.

So the fear of judgement from the drive-through worker handing me my fries creates a resistant vibration that I send out into the world. The next thing I know, they’re handing me someone else’s order, I spill someone else’s coke all over myself and stain the white tee I’ve so boldly (thoughtlessly?) chosen for work, I see my ex’s father’s friend’s car look-a-like in the nearby gas station and all of a sudden I find myself drenched in empty calories, crying in the parking lot of a fast food joint, wondering why these damn fries aren’t doing their job of filling this void inside of me.

Things can derail quickly.

Here’s the thing. We have a choice in how we choose to proceed in moments like these. My gut reaction is to call in sick to work, drive home, crawl under the bed, put my phone on silent and binge some Friends. But Joey Tribbiani is not going to fix what’s bubbling underneath the surface of all this mess.

When I take a moment to breathe, I recognize there is power in feeling. The tempting thing is to numb. Numbing holds off the pain for a bit. But when I allow myself to feel, forgo the anesthesia, I get to grow.

There’s a reason we can only see the stars in the darkness. Why Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Why caterpillars have to spend time alone in their cocoon before emerging as butterflies.

We need struggle to challenge us and build us up, we need the sun to disappear before we can wish on falling stars. We need space to feel, to transform.

When I feel, I feel deeply. When I feel, I sometimes think I won’t be able to handle it. I’m a runner. I run from pain. I try to escape by moving across the world, by throwing myself into a new project. I think that by running, I can leave all the emotions behind. But those emotions add weight to my shoes, and my running gets harder, and my muscles get tighter, my breathing narrower, my steps shorter.

I’ve been learning to slow down. I’ve kind of been forced to.

And in slowing down, I’m beginning to feel again.

I feel the weight of all the emotions I’ve pushed aside. Just as I know that training hard builds strength, I know challenging myself with the weight of these feelings will create growth. I take a deep breath, and as I exhale, I let go of all that is weighing me down: fear, grief, uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, anger, resentment, worry, helplessness, more fear.

I exhale these things out into the world and as I do, I feel the lightness of my body. I can run faster, but I choose not to run from things anymore. I can jump higher, but I keep my feet on the ground. I can breathe easier, and I do.

I breathe in what I know to be true in the midst of these feelings: that my worth comes from deep inside me, the place where my soul shakes hands with God. That when someone rejects me, it bears no weight on my own value and worthiness as a human who has and will continue to offer unconditional love. That when my heart feels like it may drop right out of my body, there is a force greater than me holding it up. There is a plan in place that is beyond my wildest dreams. My only job is to surrender, to let go of the need to fight and control, to give up the need to have things go my way.

Sometimes in our desire to fix, we lose sight of the simplest pleasures: singing off key with the windows rolled down, how the sun feels on our skin after a week of rain, thinly sliced potatoes deep fried and mass produced.

Give thanks for those things that fill you up, but know that you’re already whole, and no one (and I mean NO ONE) can give or take that away from you…

…Even the woman handing out French fries at the drive-through.

 

 

 

There have been many times over the last several months when I’ve wanted to write. Writing is my release—the place I go when I am angry and sad and vulnerable and where I go when I don’t know what to do with all of that. Where I find connection with something deeper inside me; where the loud voices of the world become dim; where I exist simply as me.

 

Lately, the world has been shaken. And recently, I have been shaken in my own life. So much shaking –it is no wonder the words must come out of me now.

 

I picture a bottle of coke, one that has been shaken and tossed around, maybe rolled around in the backseat of some old car. When it opens there is no warning—only an eruption, like everything that has been tossed around is finally ready to release. It’s messy and goes in places you don’t want it to go. It fumes like a volcano, liquid running down the edges and gathering in puddles. The noise—an unforgettable spew of fizz and gas and air.

 

This is me, about to unleash.

 

It is August 2020, and in the eight months that have emerged from a dropping ball and fireworks and resolutions, I feel broken. The world has been riddled by a virulent pandemic that does not discriminate, but which has fueled the flames of division and fear. My country feels fragile, uncomfortable, foreign. Tension is palpable from the coast of California to the tops of the mountains that stand tall in the Carolinas. In all my effort to understand love, I am left feeling like something is amiss.

 

I try to understand other perspectives, other points of view. I try to let go of the biases that have colored the lens through which I view the world. But what I cannot understand is the ability to see another human as inferior, less-than, worth-less. And, I admit that I cannot say I have never treated someone else this way—for the flaws of humanity run deep in my veins, too. Along the way I probably felt more entitled, more worthy, more deserving. I am learning, too.

 

In graduate school I saw firsthand that beneath the color of our skin, we all look the same inside. The veins and arteries that lead to one heart follow a much similar path as the veins and arteries that lead to another. The nerves that course through the spinal cord and brain and find their way to muscles act the same way in one arm as they do in another. I imagine the energy that supports life is much the same from one individual to another.

 

So I guess I find it hard to imagine that someone can look at his fellow being and see them as inferior because of: the color of their skin, how they pray, their last name, who they choose to love, the language they speak, their gender, anything else that makes them “different.”

 

My friend sent me a meditation this morning that called on me to see myself as a flower blooming, and it made me think: if all humanity were red roses, we would miss out on all the other different kinds of flowers that stain meadows and climb up mountains, the flowers that float in rivers and whisper in the woods. If the sunset only held one color, can you imagine? The absence of gold and pink, streaks of lavender and crimson, the way I imagine God dips his fingers in cups of magenta and marigold and mauve, and then streaks them across the sky.

 

How much we would miss if everything was the same.

 

As I sit here watching the same sky as you fade to night, I hope you know you matter. I hope you know you are loved. I hope you know you are just as important as any other. And I hope you challenge yourself as I plan to do, to connect with someone you may normally dismiss as “different.” Find yourself in their eyes, in the stride of their walk, in the way their lips curl into a smile. Find yourself in the way they tilt their head in thought, the way their heart beats faster after a loud noise, the way they push their hair back behind their head. Find yourself in each other, because that is the only way to find what’s real.

 

And then go out and shake things up.

 

Holding the world in a hand made of glass pieces. Jagged edges that catch the sun and send splintering light every which way. Reflections of a past I once belonged to and a future I am creating, glued together by the very presence of what is right now. Yes, let me breathe in warm sunshine and evaporated dew, blisters from walking on sidewalks toasted in the sun. Yes, let me breathe in starlight and the magic of the moon as it rises up from the horizon, sending the sun to sleep. Yes, let me breathe in courage and passion and everything else I need to stay alive. Yes, let me breathe in love. Let me breathe it in and exhale it out into clouds that float to different skies, hovering over different peoples and different places and different times, releasing the same energy that comes from holding in breaths of what is the same love. Let it rain the same in every country, washing away the stains from the day, washing away the glass pieces that broke once upon a time and made up some mosaic that sits on a window in a town I once knew. Hold the glass up to the light and see how it splinters-how the chaos and brokenness and jaggedness creates what makes it beautiful.

 

These are strange times.

 

In 2018 I visited a woman in India who had a Ph.D. in astrology to have my birth chart read. Essentially, this woman put my birthdate, time of birth, and place of birth into some program on her computer. The program took this information and produced a birth chart. The woman, technically a doctor, read my birth chart. She didn’t give me specifics, which actually made me more inclined to take her seriously (an Indian palm-reader once told me I’d meet my soulmate, a New Zealand man named Mark, on July 21, 2012….needless to say that specific event did not occur, despite all my attempts to force it to happen. But that’s another story). This woman told me I had a ‘difficult’ childhood. (If growing up vegetarian in Mississippi isn’t difficult, I don’t know what is). “But,” she said, “I have good news for you. Things are about to change.” And that’s when my Indian Doctor of Astrology told me that 2020 would be my year.

 

I think it’s too late to ask for a refund.

 

I’d been taking a break from social media, but some good friends passed on my favorite Instagrammer’s summary of the beginning of 2020:

 

 

So yeah. That is our collective 2020. Individually, my 2020 is all the above PLUS…..

 

I broke my arm. My right arm. My dominant arm.

 

You’d think breaking bones would be at least a little harder to do with social distancing measures in place and the world on lockdown. But the universe decided to highlight my clumsiness on a walk. Walking my dog, something grabbed her attention, I fell, landing on my outstretched hand.

 

My physical therapy background kicked into high gear. “FOOSH! FOOSH!” I cried. (Fall On Out-Stretched Hand). I looked down at my wrist. ‘Dinner fork deformity.’ My body went into shock. Only about thirty minutes later while driving to the hospital did all the pieces come together: Colles fracture! (We can deal with how delayed this response was later. You passed me, PT Boards!)

 

I studied this dang fracture two years ago when I was prepping for my Sports Certified Specialist Board exam. So, ha! I have sustained an injury of elite athletes!

 

A closer refresh revealed that most of the sports-related causes have to do with high-impact or collision sports, or falling from a great height. My mechanism of injury, on the other hand (no pun intended), fits more with the other common demographic: elderly women with osteoporosis.

 

So, here I am, a (not-elderly-woman-with-osteoporosis) typing in a cast, quarantined with my parents, in my old high school room. Wondering how in the world we became the world we find ourselves in today.

 

These are scary times.

 

But one thing I’ve learned over the past year or so, is that fear can be overcome by love. That I can choose love over fear. And so I choose to find the love in the midst of all this chaos:

 

I let go of my pride a little more easily, reach out to people I haven’t talked to in a while, and re-connect. I remember phases of my life that shaped me into who I am today, and the badass tribe that was part of that.

 

I collect sunshine. I take long walks and instead of looking at my phone, or thinking about what I have to do next, I listen to the way the wind lifts the leaves off their branches. I conspire with the wildflowers, tempting the bees with fresh pollen. I feel the weight of my foot on the ground, the way my heel lands first and how I roll onto my toes.

 

I read sentences from books I always meant to read, before time or life got in the way. I relish these words, I take my time with them. I let them mean something.

 

I listen to songs in ways I never listened before. I imagine the hands that wrote the lyrics, the stories behind the chords, the riffs that happened unexpectedly. I feel the music in my bones, coursing through my veins, filling my mind. It overtakes all the anxious thoughts that have lived in my brain for these past few weeks. It soothes my soul, it creates an aching to be a part of something like this.

 

And in those lapses of time, when I’m fully present and engaged and outside of myself while astutely in tune with my Self…..

 

that is when I breathe.

 

In the midst of all this pain, grief, loss, anxiety, fear, I pray that you find time to breathe. However you breathe, Breathe steadily. Breathe boldly.

Breathe love.

Today was a Jalapeno-on-my-face kind of day

 

Adulting 101: do not touch your face after de-seeding a jalapeno; you must wash your hands thoroughly first. How did I miss this important, somewhat common-sense lesson?

 

Today was the perfect day to make a Pinterest-worthy, “healthy” turkey taco soup. I mean, it’s the end of October, it’s raining, and by Mississippi standards, this 63-degree weather calls for Pumpkin Spice Lattes, ankle boots and none other than…. taco soup.

 

Let me be clear: my approach to life is kind of a throw in everything you got and see what happens approach. Needless to say, my cooking style is the same.

 

So, armed with mom’s credit card (yes, I am a thirty year old adult woman living at my parent’s house voluntarily), I headed to the grocery store and loaded my cart with “healthy” ingredients, everything ready-to-go, of course: “washed and ready” sweet potatoes, onion and kale mix; a jar of salsa; chopped, riced cauliflower; ground turkey; etc., etc. (I don’t want to give away this clearly 5-star worthy recipe) and one large jalapeno pepper. My half-Indian heritage makes me feel inclined to add a bit of spice to all my meals, and I’ve learned the hard-way to not blindly throw in ground cayenne pepper from a spice jar, so I figured I’d ration out a single jalapeno pepper and be totally fine.

 

Even better, I figured if I de-seeded the thing, I’d avoid the spice completely, but still get to brag that my soup came laden with hot peppers.

 

So, once I got home and unloaded the groceries, I started to cook. Sidebar: I always add unnecessary time to the task; intending to make the trip quick, I load 5 bags per arm, then reach a 5-bag heavy arm up to close my trunk, and inevitably a bag breaks and something spills and lo and behold, I’ve just added an extra five minutes to my unloading mission when it would have been so much easier and less time-consuming to just make two trips to unload my groceries instead of one. Does anyone else do this? But what can I say, you live and learn. Or in my case, just repeat the same thing over and over, expecting different results. I think some wise guy once called that “insanity.”

 

So anyway, I de-seeded the damn jalapeno, thinking I had it beat, and then went about my way. Somehow I missed the memo that you should wash your hands after handling jalapeno peppers or seeds or really any kind of hot pepper, and so I went to go scratch my face (or more likely, wipe off the chocolate I’d been scarfing down mid-soup making from our Halloween drawer).  Five seconds later, my face was ON FIRE.

 

My first instinct was to rub the place on my face that felt on fire, with my jalapeno-infested fingers. Then I stuck my face under the kitchen faucet, cleaning it with the handy dish soap and sponge nearby (oh yes, the sponge that I’d just used to clean off the same cutting board used to chop my jalapenos).

In the midst of all this, I received some advice: use milk and/or lime juice to take out the pepper sting. Well I’m never one to turn down a DIY spa day, and limes just happened to be one of my ingredients handy nearby, so I made myself a lime and milk face mask and attached it to my face with a single sheet of Bounty’s finest paper towel.

 

Eventually the sting wore out, and about five pimples later I sat down to a bowl of my hodgepodge taco soup.

 

But it got me thinking: my whole morning had been like that, stuck in that frazzled energy. When it rains, it pours, right? My dogs were little demons, I sank my foot in mud, spilled a cup of coffee in my car, lost my keys, I mean the list goes on and on. If I don’t take a moment to wash off the little things in life, they build and build until they take over.

 

So, in that moment, holding a milk and lime infused paper towel to my face while I ate my soup, I just decided to shift my energy. I just decided, hey, why don’t I do something about this?

 

I made a commitment that I didn’t want to feel that way. I didn’t want to feel worried or anxious or angry at the world. I didn’t want to lash out at myself or my mother for never teaching me not to wash my hands after de-seeding a jalapeno (which, to be fair, I’m sure she said a hundred times over and I just never listened). I didn’t want to stay stuck in that low energy that kept me feeling sorry for myself.

And y’all are about to ask me what’s in my fruit loops but I swear, after I just surrendered that to the universe and let go, when I said, please help me give all this crap over to you (because, yes, that’s how I talk to my higher power), I immediately felt a shift.

 

Something felt lighter inside when I let go of resisting what was. When I was playing fetch with our new puppy, he dropped the ball easier. He listened to me better. He did what he was supposed to do 5 times out of 10 instead of 1 time out of 10. I cleaned the dishes without scrubbing furiously because the soup debris wouldn’t come off. I took a walk in the rain and saw a deer run out and just like a little kid I laughed out loud (even though I see about five deer on average, a day). And yeah, maybe it was me, my energy, maybe just shifting my perspective. Maybe there’s nothing “magical” about it, but maybe, just maybe, it’s the natural way of things. Maybe surrendering doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it.

 

We just get bogged down by all the jalapenos in life that we forget to sit in the madness and listen. Instead of washing our hands of the problem, we let it grow by rubbing it all over ourselves. If instead we choose to surrender and listen, we get to receive, and whether we receive in goosebumps or pay stumps, we receive something when we let go of ourselves and get in line with something greater. At least, that’s what I’m finding out. And it’s a hell of a lot better to live that way, then letting one damn jalapeño ruin my day.

Wow. Talk about things not going as planned.

I had this idea of what this blog would look like. I had this idea of what my life would look like. Traveling the world, working as a sports physical therapist for Olympic athletes. And yet, I find myself back in Madison, Mississippi, surrendering to the fact that I am not in control of this life. And you know what, that is ok.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to listen to my inner wisdom–you know, that “gut feeling” that I’m learning is connected to something outside myself. And for many reasons, my gut told me that China wasn’t right, at least not right now.

My ego took a blow, that’s for sure. I won’t lie: pride is something I struggle with a lot of days. This need to validate myself with external things. I grew up thinking that my worth depended on accolades and achievements, letters behind my name. But I’m recognizing that pride is just another form of fear–fear and control and wanting things to go my way.

When I allow myself to surrender to that something outside myself, that gut feeling, that life force–when I give over my will and let something greater take charge, that’s when everything falls into place.

So I’m starting anew. My whole life, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to writing. Something about pen on paper, the way words can sift and change and make you feel. So, this blog is getting a makeover. Instead of its original purpose, to document my life abroad, I’m using it to share one of my passions: writing. I’m embracing vulnerability and doing something that speaks to me.

Today, I’m sharing a few poems. This blog is a work in progress, but I’m letting go and seeing what it turns into.

 

Things that remember me:

morning dew in between toes

and the way that road

was broken. The only thing

to make you cry,

even though I tried,

many times.

Have you forgotten

the race up-stairs

and mom’s straw-colored hair?

How she pulled it back

always reminded me of

timing. How it unfolds

in songs you heard

a time or two ago–

The times they are a-changing–

and wouldn’t it be nice

to catch what blew in the wind

when Dylan went and wrote

lines worth unwinding.

 

 

 

I Hate Poetry

I hate poetry

How when you’re twenty-one

It’s somehow wrong to rhyme

Even though every time I write of you

I think of Varsity Blues and how I said

“I love you” first.

 

I hate poetry

Because I can’t just say “I’m sad.”

That doesn’t mean as much

As saying, “The way you left

Makes me feel as empty as an Amarillo sky,”

Even though I’ve never been to Texas

(They’d never ask me why).

 

And I hate how I never know where to break

My lines just like

I never knew how to break

Our time.

Sometimes I just want to break the rules

Like I did with you

And say:

 

I remember the black and white nights when you parked

At the end of my driveway with your headlights off

Even though I couldn’t see because

Who keeps lights on at night in the middle of Mississippi?

And I remember that ring you bought me

How it made me think of staying here

And pints of beer on Saturday nights

And red-lipped blondes that define wives–

The kind I’d never be–

Because I wasn’t ever quite right

For Mississippi.

And sometimes I think of Yazoo clay

Beneath my feet as we climbed the top

Of a deer stand in camouflaged pants

Your father made me wear

Even though he knew I didn’t believe

In killing deer.

And the way you put your gun away

When he drove off in that truck

To find a better clearing

Where he didn’t have to talk to me

Or joke about my legs

And how they weren’t quite like Brittany’s.

 

But if I said all that the way I should

I don’t think anyone would see the good-

It’s all just words.

They’d tell me to write fiction instead

And cross my fingers that someone would pick it up.

 

But I hate poetry–didn’t you know?

I hate not knowing all the rules to break

Because without them I make my own.

And breaking your own rules

Is always worse

Than breaking ones

You didn’t make up.

 

 

Escape

They say you can’t catch fire

But tonight I caught it in a jar

With holes punched at the top

And as I stood bathed by stars

I thought it was a feat

That I captured fire

And yet it was I

Who could not escape.

Like that summer when I was caught

Between twenty and not too young

And managed to slip up just enough

To blur that perfect slate

Because you told me my hair was long enough

To get out of tickets only men gave anyway.

And how still the next morning

You pushed Jose Cuervo

Into a palm reflecting red

From an alarm that wouldn’t ring

For another hour.

How you told me it was ok

To drive slowly to the stadium

And park crooked in a spot they marked “reserved”

Because we were pretty girls.

I think of that Florida game

When you watched the team walk out

And threw your string of pearls

Forgetting they belonged to your grandmother

How we only thought to laugh

And stumble toward those tents

Where I pretended to care

When parents saw you flirt with all the fathers

To see who had enough whisky on his breath

That we could ask for sips from bottles

Tucked inside boots their wives had polished

Earlier that day.

You would pick out boys

You thought I should approach

But I would only shake my head

And point out how they stuck flasks

Between girls’ breasts

And how mine weren’t big enough.

You’d laugh that southern boys

Couldn’t be men until they’d dipped

Or held bloody antlers in both hands

Or bought their first Ford pickup truck.

You taught me everything I know

About Dixie and what it means to

Call this home.

And so last night I thought of you

And how your cheeks never burned

Even under an August sun

As we sat on bleachers singeing

Exposed thighs and eating

Barbecue just because we could,

You and I.

How you told me not to blot off grease

Because it was better this way:

Eating barbecue in dresses and drinking pitchers

Because, you told me,

Boys always like it

When you can’t escape.

 

 

 

 

Unfit.

He cuts like sand on broken skin

Or Kansas wind–sharp

And hard to keep.

His words, they bleed, and I can’t be

An ear for their hypocrisy.

He says the words, but they fall deaf,

As actions can’t confirm their depth.

He lacks the courage to admit

That we were never meant to fit.

 

 

2008.

Every time I hear that song I think of him

And summers when the road was ours

And cars could get us anywhere

I think of weathered hands on steering wheels

And stolen glances from cheap shades

And restless fingers reaching for my face

I feel the evening on my legs

Stretching out in country grass

The way he stops to look at me

And asks if I’m okay

His voice is soft but harsh

Under stars that seem so innocent

And when I pause to answer him

He silences me with a kiss.

 

 

The Road.

There is a road that I know well

Made up of broken sunlight and headlights from old

Boyfriends’ trucks. It’s pieced together haphazardly

And glued by memories and the mistakes that made you you.

This road is lined by remnants of honeysuckle

Dew from yesterday and rain from the skies

That were eaten up by the night.

It’s here I laid my faults, burying them in the reflections of the stars

So as not to disturb reality. You see, I’d buried all my history.

So now this road sees barefoot paths and scars from

Walking down with mason jars full of poisons we thought

Were only rites of passage. We used to catch fireflies

In the same glass and hold them up as lanterns

To light the path down that road to freedom. But once that road

Became a bridge from youth to seventeen something changed.

And suddenly its only right was to hide me from the moon’s spotlight

As I ran to meet him under midnight shadows.

We littered the road with cigarettes and smoke from arguments

That never lasted long. We picked up the debris with fingers

That stretched like the Pleiades and embers

From the butts of tobacco.

 

 

When everything changed.

When you looked at me and said you’d killed a man at twenty-three I only blinked

Then after weeks of muted calls and tempered talks, I pictured you–

Your car, a faded blue, and weathered leather cracked by Mississippi sun.

Your glasses hanging carelessly and rearview reflections of your immodesty

As you turned to push back your hair.

Your jeans and the way they hugged each curve

Of time long spent on dusty baseball fields

Your skin tanned unpurposefully with flecks of burns

You’d unexpectedly acquired.

I pictured this as you, moments before that afternoon

When everything changed.

 

 

 

One step away

Rain tastes like last Saturday

When you were away

And all I could think to play

Was my broken ukulele.

I wondered why our last mistake

Came before you thought to say hello

And suddenly I’m thinking

Isn’t it funny to see your name

And touch your face (by mistake)

And drive you back to my place

Where you thought those years could all be solved

By rain and guitar strings and the way

You looked at me. But think again–

Lately, those times have changed.

It seems to me we were just one step away,

One last break

One breathless name.

 

 

 

Opposite of goodbye

Remember how we ran

Across your dad’s land

To your truck, the way

I almost got stuck climbing

Out your window.

Remember the way we laughed

As we drank from tin cans

And awarded ourselves for

Being young then.

Remember, when it all changed?

When he said she said

Became a game

And who you laid with

And with whom you stayed

Became just more

Plays to make.

I remember that day.

It rained. And you-

You stained my lips

With all your “what-ifs”

And isn’t it time to let go

Of promises.

I counted the times

I replayed the lines

You told me,

The way you could hold me

The way you’d mold me

To make me fit

Inside your glove.

I’m tired of playing

But I can’t stop chasing

Whatever it was that made me

Crazy, cause all of that

Just reinforced the

Opposite of goodbye.