Caress.

How do you define a sense of belonging, of home? Most times I have tried to ruminate on the question, I come up with  - where I find love and all that entails. Where I am accepted for who I am. Its true. But then on trying to probe it any further, I kept drawing blanks.

I can maybe try to answer that today. Its where I am allowed to be my strongest and yet be at my most vulnerable.

Vulnerable - that very word conjures up a connotation of weakness, a sense of inferiority and a distrust, where strength is needed. Maybe it is all those things. But perhaps what isn't quite grasped in this harangue is acceptance. Acceptance of what you are at the germ of your person. It does sound simple enough, but its more like laying yourself naked. Revealing an oozing wound. In other words, being vulnerable. 

So when time comes, where you live in a commune of people who are as vulnerable as you are. And through what can only be described as limbic resonance, is this vulnerability visible to us. Through the physical senses we reach these vulnerabilities and talk to them. Laugh and maybe cry about them. Maybe take some walking steps together. And in doing so, feel relieved and at ease that we are there. 

So, here is my love letter to them and with some measure of gratitude. We adopt a facade to lead life, navigate its various vicissitudes and hope for survival. To you, I am completely bare. And here therefore, I belong.  

Dead Letters

The interstate is no place for locked  memories and feelings to surface.

Barreling down the tarmac at more than legal speeds, looking for the next asshole who is going to cut across you and another lane to get to an exit they should have known was coming up - this isn't emotional milieu. For memories to come rushing out and images to fly across your eyes, safer places and substances have been known to mankind.

But then what does prepare you for anything? Not happiness, not tragedy and not nostalgia - none have an appropriate time and place. These lemons are tossed in your apple cart and all you can do is handle the tumble as best you can.

All I wanted to do, was say goodbye. All I want to do is feel him, before the light went out of his being. Lay eyes on him before the flames reduce him to ashes. Time to grieve helps but leaves ascatter shards that lacerate the stoic envelope at the most inopportune moments.

Survival instincts fortunately do mean that you box up the tear and press down harder. Away from your eye, and force your hands and feet to coordinate.

The car that cut across just makes its exit. Maybe they are rushing to be by someone's side in their fleeting moments. Hopefully they get to say goodbye. Hopefully the entropy of memories only finds pleasant form when examined.

As the engine ticks cool, under the canopy of the starlit sky, I allow myself a sigh of anguish and sing a borrowed paean. I loved that man, his flaws and all. For that, I can only say thank you.