Letter to the Moon

Dear Moon,

I have been meaning to talk to you for awhile now, but was always busy, counting the starts that surround you. You do know there are many stars out there, don’t you?

Well, it is time now. Time for you to know about me. I have been watching you ever since I can remember, I have tried to talk to you, but I guess you haven’t heard me since you never answered. At one point in time, I thought you are just rude. I guess you are just far away. My daughter told me that you are very far. She knows, because she’s visited you. She told me how the man on the moon is really nice and that you two get along just fine. I’m glad, because I was worried about you. I would hate to know that you are there alone all the time and you can even hear us. That’s too lonely. Even for a Moon…

I’m here. You are there. I guess, somehow we are together although you don’t know me.
I am infatuated with you. I wish I could hold and caress you. I wish I could sing you lullabies and watch you sleep. I have to tell you now, I just can’t keep this as a secret anymore. I love you. There. I said it.

Yours truly,

The woman not on the Moon.

Utopia

In my world there are no cars.
In my world there are no boxes.
In my world, there are no lines.
In my world, there are no tears.

In my world, live only hearts.
In my world, live only writers.
In my world, live only eyes.
In my world, live only smiles.

You are in my world. And you, and you, and you.
She is in my world too. And he, and you, and you.
She can only visit my world, though.
When the sun sets in my world, she has to go back into hers.

In my world there is no pain.
In my world there is no wait.
In my world there is no fence.
In my world there is no regret.

In my world, you are what you want to be.
In my world, you look up at the sky and smile.
In my world, you are loved.
In my world, you are you.

Resistance

I step outside. Outside of my mind. I can see my heart pumping, resisting to letting go of feelings. My heart seems suffocated in the crowd of thoughts, feelings and rocks. I look around and try to figure out the magic words. I need magic words, right? I think I need to stop this overwhelming feeling of too much feeling.

The world around us resists to letting go. The night doesn’t want to let go of darkness. The moon lingers in the sky even when it is obvious that the sun is there. The leaves do not want to fall off the trees, the parents do not want to let their children grow. Who am I to decide that letting go is the thing to do?

My heart is still beating. That’s good, I think. I am inside my mind and I know I should leave. I need to live outside of my mind, my thoughts should be my companions not my rulers, my feelings should call before they show up… I’ve managed to grow a pretty spoiled bunch of feelings. They come and make themselves at home. Next thing I know they completely moved in.

I am here. I am sorting through my years. It’s spring cleaning. My first. I promise, there is no resistance this time. I will only keep what I need… It’s a beautiful, sunny day. I’ll keep this one.

Wishes of a tree

Have you ever imagined being a tree? A tall, strong, straight up, serious tree. Or, a small tree with lots of branches in someone’s backyard. A mountain tree, or a prairie tree, or even a palm tree.

I was talking to this tree once, and he was telling me stories from a far away time. He remembered every second of his hundreds of years. He told me he doesn’t get to have conversations too often and he was happy I stopped by. I touched its trunk and he shivered. “Nobody touched me in a long time.” “Last I remember, this little girl came and hugged me, buried her face in my leaves and asked me to hold her.” A leaf fell on my shoulder. I picked it up and said “Thank you”. I looked up and the branches were dancing, I stopped and listened: the tree was singing. The sweetest lullaby…

The tree told me about his youth and his wishes. When he was growing up, he wished to be a huge, tall tree in the middle of a forest, the tallest tree around. Then, he grew, the trees around him grew in a forest and he was the tallest. People would come and admire him, the other trees where envious and stopped talking to him. He grew lonely and sad. He wished to be a small tree in someone’s backyard. He wished he had friends and that kids would climb up on him and decorate him at Christmas. He wished and he grew older and sadder as time went by. That’s where he was when I stopped and hugged him. We talked for a long time and he told me his last wish…

I turned to leave and he burst into flames. I watched that big tree crumble up until there was nothing but ashes and amber.

The tree lived… The tree was happy… The wish was granted…

Counting

How many times have I heard: “you have to be first, coming in second doesn’t count”? I lost count. The first memory of my childhood is that of me as a child, in a crib, calling for someone to come. I could hear the voices outside my room, I was calling, but nobody came. I don’t know how old I was. I don’t remember anything else. It was just the fear of being alone. Was it the first time I felt alone, or the first time I felt fear? I don’t really know. It feels like the first time to me, so I guess, it was.

I would like second for awhile… What was my second memory as a child? I don’t know. The memories run together after the first one. I am infatuated with the notion of peace, with being able to let go of thoughts and feel compelled to just feel. I’m not counting anymore.

Expecting the unexpected

I wait for the sky to open and for you to put it all back.
I wait for the wind to take away the pain of dryness and for you to cover me up.
I wait for the earth to change its movement and, at any time, for us to fall… upwards.
I wait for the eternity of your touch, for the safety of your arms.
I wait for the moments to swirl and for you to send me your thoughts.
I wait for all the craziness to end and for peace to start.
I wait for rainbows, for sunshine, for soft kisses and for flames.
I wait for everything that I think is reasonable…

The sky opens, you cover me up, we don’t fall, we still are.
The moments come and go, they bring tears and laughter.
The life comes and stays for awhile, we feel peace and then we fall.
The rainbows color the darkness and we get up, we still are.
What we thought is reasonable is no more, we still are.
The flames take us away, the waves quench us, we still are.
Sore, burned, happy, fulfilled, stronger, better, complete.
We still are.

Flame

It’s getting dark outside. It’s that moment in between times: the sun looks tired, but still tries to give it its all. I look at the sky and wait. The colors change. It’s amber right now. Soft amber in the month of August. Flames in the sky. It’s interesting… it should get hot soon. I just want to stay here and watch the flames. It maybe just the fear of turning towards myself…

I have to warm up to my own flames now. It’s really dark and cold outside. I am a child, a serious, brown eyed girl who doesn’t smile too much. Everyone thinks I’m just quiet, they may think I’m cold. I am really busy inside, trying to sort out what’s ashes and amber and flames. When I finish, I’ll be old. I just hope I won’t be too old to care. Or too cold.

I miss your embraces. I miss feeling protected and safe. I miss being the happy, serious, brown eyed girl I have never been. I want to have been able to run out and jump in your arms and feel truly happy when you came. Instead, I always wondered if I was enough. Always trying to be more. So much trying, that I forgot to be.

I am not putting out my flames anymore. They will always burn.

Differences

It’s going to be different this time.
The rain will still fall, but there will be new rain drops.
The sun will still shine, but its rays will touch your face differently
The night will come, but the sounds before it will be softer.
I will still love you, but my heart will beat faster.
The flowers will grow and some people will look at them and think
That they’ve seen them before…
No, they are different.

We look for what we want to see.
We dream of what we think we are allowed to dream of.
We love the way we were taught and get mad when it doesn’t fill us up.
We escape and become different.

Then, we start looking for what we want to see again.

Beginning

This is lot harder than I thought. When I read this assignment, I thought… it’s a piece of cake. There are so many beginnings! Where do I begin?

I have enrolled in this writing class. 50 days, 50 assignments, 50 pages, 50 bucks. Why? Because I like to write, it keeps me sane, because Kim made me (for those of you who know Kim, you know that’s absolutely true), because I don’t have enough to do (right). It’s a beginning. I have started to think about me. I have started to care about what I like and what I don’t, about how I spend my time with myself and about what I do for myself.

I grew up in a strict, tight, gray environment. My parents loved me, my grandparents loved me, everyone loved me, but it was all loaded with responsibilities. I grew up fast and grew up tight. I kept withdrawing into this world of extreme imagination hosted inside my head and heart. I was happy there, but it felt that on the outside I wasn’t good enough. Why am I telling you all this? I was talking about doing something for myself. Yes, I started to do more of that. It’s still hard and I still have a lot of guilt associated with that, but it’s a start.

I feel fresh and powerful, full of unexpressed feelings and thoughts. I feel much older than I really am, but much more energetic than before. Before the beginning…