03.11.04 11:23 am

this morning i wrote a response to a dear friend's email about our torn childhoods, about our struggle to recover, to let go and move on. it's been with me since. i want to put it here to remember and touch on.

in her email she asks "how do i cut the cord? how do you cut a cord you can't see and you didn't put there? i guess it's the path we're taking. i guess it will eventually cut the cord. it isn't fair that a bad father can have such a strong effect on a little girl."

my response:

i don't think of it so much as a cord needing to be cut, but a groove needing to be smoothed and filed so that we can re-direct ourselves, our reactions, our motivations. these fuckers came in and carved us deeply, buried us up to our neck and then provided specific twisted grooves for us to continue living through. these grooves that we follow were built by thoughtless maniacally egotistical unhealthy men. and the grooves are their depository that stays long after they physically left us. and then it's up to us to forge a different path, live a different healthy way, in our bleeding weakened self-hating alone state. no wonder we want to numb out and disappear, with such a past forced on us, such a clueless future left to us.

but the nugget in all of that is our deepdown selves, the parts they didn't reach and carve into. our soul of souls, our grandmother selves that we buried away from their prying fingers. that is the our ointment and our secret power. that is what we need to wash over us. we just need to figure out how to let it do it's thing. and then stand back. because to have come out of what we went through, to stand tall after all of that, to have left and come back again on our own terms, that will be a true force to be reckoned with. and i feel it. in my bones. and i've felt it from you, sister mine. i don't doubt for a goddamn second that it will happen. we are, each of us, going through necessary journeys to smooth those fucking grooves left by them, and our whispered instinct that brought us to the places we are now, the healing places to catch our breath before forging ahead to our rightful true path... that whispered instinct can grow into a solid powerful voice inside ourselves with each right step. i truly believe this. i have doubts and complete dismal moments, especially now that i'm left alone to question every aspect of me, to look fully at the gouges and damage left behind on me, as you are doing right now. but i feel this soul of mine, deep down buried, impatiently waiting to be let out. we'll have our scars, and they will ache, but i'm deadtired of walking the same old misbegotten path our parents forged for us (yes, parentS). i want to win, goddamnit.

ok, i feel better now. in this moment.

this moment. sigh. i think i would like to weave these moments into an unbreakable rope with which to climb out. who's with me? all in favor say aye! let's blow this popsicle stand!

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and on the bus this morning, this poem above my head for me to spy:

Trusting the Dark

The flower withers, curls,
petals brown and fray,
crumble into the earth.
The shell, the pod
also falls into darkness:
like a flower’s corpse: hard, tight,
closed in on itself. We call
this a seed. And trust
the dark to do what it will.


Pesha J. Gertler

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there is a bright warm sun outside.

today i plan to bask in it.