With grace in my heart

And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

These lyrics from “After The Storm” by Mumford & Sons really stood out to me, and it’s funny because I used to listen to Mumford & Sons when I was depressed, and in my mind, these lines were sung to me, and that was kind of a consoling lullaby. Tonight however, my first thought was how I could sing them to so many people in my life. And then I caught myself because I’ve been so lonely lately in a way that I never have been. I want to celebrate balance by just being with someone. By just letting most things go unsaid and knowing. And there are so few that I know who are there.

I am in the right place, and it is also a good place. The timing of each event, relationship, and struggle in my life makes perfect sense. I’m thankful for everything I’ve gone through and done because I believe that having made certain mistakes of body, mind, and soul when I have made them will keep me from making them again, at other, more crucial times. I think that emotionally and spiritually, I have used my youth well.

Anyway, it is hard to watch others—even others I don’t particularly care about—go through the same things that I have, or go through them in such ways that they won’t learn. They’ll just repeat down the road.

I don’t necessarily mean that everyone is in pain and I can’t stand to watch. I mean that I’ve largely overcome all these emotional spikes that so many people around me are enduring—teaching, friendships, relationships, my body, my family—and my mastery of and attitude towards all of those things are more solid and even-keeled than ever. 

So, it’s just more that I’m impatient with others. “Hurry up and get to where I am, it’s lonely up here. I love you, and I want you here with me.” That has really shown lately, and I need to get it in check. 

Something I’m learning from running and, funnily enough, from some odd bits in Lamb where Josh and Biff are studying Confucius and the Tao and whatnot, is that you have to be in the moment. Duh. But when I am running, what that means is that I look no more than one sidewalk square ahead of me, and I—I don’t know how else to put it—exist, in the pain and the struggle of every little cramp and itch and short breath. There is nothing else! Because if there is anything else, I’ll want to be doing that. It’s like if I look so hard into myself I get sucked inside, and I’m just looking out from my lungs, while my legs do their thing. I’ve never, ever in my life consciously felt like that before. Like, for the first time, for even just a few short miles, I actually, finally see from within myself. 

The moral becomes that I can’t leap outside of myself to drag others to where I’m at because it never works, which always makes me mad. (Ergo, impatience with others.) Rather, exist from directly within myself, and there will be neither any sympathy pains, nor real pain. I won’t feel alone and wish others to come to me then feel disappointed—or, like when I’m running, those feelings won’t matter, because I am inside of that pain, and I am that pain.

Objectively, I know I sound totally bat-shit, but this is all visually real to me right now. So we’ll go with it. I think what I’m trying to say is that the real part of these lyrics that stood out to me was the part that says this—

Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

With grace in my heart. I am over the hill, happy, with flowers in my hair, yes. But it’s only with patience and graciousness for others and their journeys that I’m a) going to stay “here” and b) going to have any hope of anyone even wanting to be with me, in some capacity “where I am.”

Which is really, just very peaceful and balanced. And happy.

I’m really fucking happy. Really. :)

It’s Called Cautery

Close your mouth,
comerade,
it’s called
cautery,
and it’s necessary
to coagulate
and mitigate
blood and damage.

Wounds burned scab,
yes, and scar
hard, so why
surprise when I 
find it hard 
to hurt
for you, or 
lack of you? Why 
big eyes when I
can’t know
nor care for
your sudden caress?

What? Did you expect
me
to pine away for you
and wine
my way around 
for you, 
phantom feeling 
limbs
from limbs
you tore from me? 
Standing,
gaping,
gurgling where you used to be?

No. 
It’s called cautery,
and it’s necessary.

The medical practice or technique of cauterization is the burning of part of a body to remove or close off a part of it in a process called cautery, which destroys some tissue,^[1] in an attempt to mitigate damage, remove an undesired growth, or minimize other potential medical harmful possibilities such as infections, when antibiotics are not available. The practice was once widespread for treatment of wounds. Its utility before the advent of antibiotics was effective on several levels:

• useful in stopping severe blood-loss and preventing exsanguination
• to close amputations