A year ago....London calls, and home beckons...

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"And in the end, we were all just humans drunk, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The dishwasher hums.  The washing machine churns.  It’s a Saturday night and I listen to him lull her to sleep.  A year ago this weekend I was in London.  I was leaving Noely, Tree and Simon at a train station as I took the journey to Hackney to end the last night, in the wee hours of the morn, in Johanna’s kitchen with her and Amanda.  Things have changed.  A lot.

A year ago at this time I was on an incredible spiritual journey.  I was deeply in therapy; I was working with a Shaman.  I had made a difficult conscious choice to change my life.  At whatever cost that came.  I had decided that I would be alone, for the rest of my life if that is what it all would mean, to find the only true love that I could ever really hold on to.  Myself.  A year ago today, I decided that although I was broken, I was not unfixable.  A year ago today, I decided to rewrite my story.

And so, surprisingly even to me, I did just that.  I took all of my broken bits, beautiful moments, tragedy and confusion and pieced myself together again, one stitch at a time.  Had I met him any sooner, I would’ve blindly walked passed him.  I wasn’t ready.  Not for him. Most certainly not for her.  I was only beginning to grasp the concept of letting go of all that which I could not control.  I was only beginning to grasp that this, all of this, was about so much more if I could only allow myself to see it.

To seek peace – at whatever cost seems like a strange concept really.  Shouldn’t it just be a natural state?  For many perhaps.  Not for me.  It had never been my way.  I always thought too much, felt too much, saw too much.  The majority of my life had been spent trying to save other people all of the while feeling completely selfish in doing what I wanted.  To clarify, some may have felt shorted by me, however I could never find a way to express that it was just that others needed me more.  Until I guess the moment arose that I realized perhaps I needed me more.

I dreamt of London last night and it wasn’t until I sat down to write tonight that I realized the timing.  A year ago today I was in the flurry of a soulful hurricane.  Myself, everyone around me igniting.  Everything I touched kept leading others and myself on a path.  In no grammatical eloquence I can only say it this way – it was the trippiest time of my fucking life.  The Universe was this orb following me.  Pushing me.  Putting me on airplanes, and in circumstances that tested everything about myself that I was supposed to learn and show others.  It was a release and absorption all at once.  The noise of it all was deafening.  

It would be a lie to say that I haven’t been distracted a bit over the past many months.  Of all of that.  The intensity.  The spirituality.  I have him now.  And her now, and my focus has shifted.  But it’s brought about challenge.  Another journey.  Another path. 

Tonight however I am consumed with that time.  The urge to remember that it is about so much more. I hold things within myself again, like I used to.  My back aches for no reason because I don’t know how to release.  I don’t know how to express love and confusion.  I don’t know how to show gratitude with all that I have but to acknowledge and embrace how far I have come.  I don’t know.  How do you hold on to who you have become and release the only thing you have ever known about yourself?  If that even makes sense.

Each night, when I go to sleep, and each morning when I wake, I feel peace.  For both I do with a boy who has decided to hop on my crazy train and embrace the fact that I talk to the Universe, drink too much wine, have more plans than we could ever have time for, buy way too much shit for his daughter than necessary, have long philosophical talks with most of my ex’s and dance randomly in my kitchen.  For that, I would trade nothing. 

However tonight, I wish he knew me a year ago.  Although he was to meet me only a couple short months later, I wish he knew me, as lights burnt out as I walked passed them, as I sought comfort in the stories of strangers, as all of this was unfolding, the finding of me so that I could finally know him. And maybe tonight, I miss me a bit, because she hides sometimes in the shadows of the now…but she is there, fire in her belly, passport in hand….ready…and perhaps the her of then is my clarity of now.  I don’t know.  I’m still learning.

A year ago tomorrow Amanda and I rode in a cab to Heathrow.  She said to me, “You’re a really beautiful person you know, I wish you believed it….” I cried and said, “I wish I did too.” Perhaps now, I believe it a bit more.  All of these things that I’ve done.  All of these things that I have seen.  They are a story within a story.  Perhaps even tonight is too and a decade from now it will be told in a different way, in a different version, with different people around.  But tonight, embodied by a year ago, I am wrapped in the blanked of my now and it is worthy of acknowledgment.

Thanks for listening.  

Traffic

"I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you." – Dirty Dancing

How do I write this in a way that makes sense?

I sat tonight, having just watched a movie, having just done some reading, having had a solid workout, feeling good – then out of nowhere my heart started to hurt….literally – I could physically feel my heart.  A weird uncomfortable ache and it had nothing to do with me but it overcame nonetheless.  The appetite for the dinner I had slowly been cooking for hours, lost.  A blanket of sadness overcame.

The life of an empath I presume.  It had nothing to do with me but I couldn’t reach the source – it was too far away.  I could only just feel the feelings. And so I wallowed within them and prayed for light for those I love. 

The road is difficult.  There is a place here by the ocean.  It’s beautiful.  We call it Sandy Point.  You have to drive 6 miles to get there.  Part of the road is paved and smooth.  The other bit rocky and dirt and you have to drive slow.  But it’s worth it when you get to the end and it’s beautiful, tranquil and perfect.  My church.  Symbolic enough I presume.  Life.  The journey to get to the beautiful bits.

It’s going to be ok.  That I know.  This is all just some weird transition of time and space.  As my old friend John wrote, “All I want is someone to pull me out, I’m stuck in a traffic jam and there’s nowhere to run for miles…..” That’s us.  Stuck right now.  In a way.  But not really.  Traffic still moves….it's still going somewhere.  We are what we believe. We are still moving as slowly as it as it all seems.

Last night I stood in fields of mud.  Each step I tried to take, my legs were pulled and everything was heavy, but I eventually pulled my feet forward.  I made it across.  Isn’t that this?  Mud?  Life. 

When is the last time that you believed that you were beautiful?  You are.  We are.  Be.  Release.  Stand in mud and laugh your ass off.  Know that every morning you wake up you have a chance to begin again.  That’s what I’m choosing.  What other alternative do we have?  Believe in things.  Believe in you.  Sacrifice.  Give.  Love. Forget what you need to and remember that which fills.

It’s a fucked up journey and tonight I have no answers except I love.  That’s all I know to do.  Love.  And I crave those those that fill me with it. It's all we want really - to be stuck and to have something, someone to pull us out. 

xo

Thanks for listening.

Hollow

My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.

-Robert Frost

There is a quiet sometimes.  A mild buzzing of white noise throughout my house.  I sat in my kitchen today and listened to the quiet undertones of silence.  I stared at my phone.  Attempting to will a message from the Universe to appear.  It didn’t work.  The silence remained.

Most times, the silence soothes me.  My life is always so chaotic, running here and there, in and out, up and down that I usually welcome the melody that flows within the lack of noise.  Not today.  Today it wrenched in my stomach a bit as I sat fiddling with the bracelets that line my wrist.  I wanted for something more.  A phone call.  A plane ride.  An escape.  The need to be anywhere except for here consumed me.

I stared out the window, looking at the now empty trees.  I felt empty too.  In that moment I wanted something that I rarely do, for someone to be standing behind me with their arms wrapped around me so that maybe I could remember what it was like to feel something again.  Strange to feel everything and nothing all the same.  And I hold it all under this blanket of silence.  Which seems ironic for someone who always expresses herself.  But there’s a difference between what I speak and what I feel.  That, I keep to myself with the exception of a select few.  Yes, there’s a great difference. 

Today I feel strained.  Stifled.  As if something is sitting on my chest and I can’t quite breathe right.  As if something is about to surface that I’ve been pushing down, trying to avoid.  As I write, tears stream down my cheeks and I have no explanation for it.  There is no apparent cause.  There is only silence.  Perhaps that is the cause.  I’m not sure. 

Hollow.  Hollow is the word that keeps whispering across my mind.  Hollow like the empty trees.  

Orange Kitchens

It was a lazy Saturday.  I was at peace.  More so than I had been in a long time, regardless of the many circumstances around me that would normally deter that.

I lay in bed….for hours.  I slept.  Something I never do.   

The alarm went off.  Ughhhh I thought to myself.  It was 6:30 PM.  I was supposed to be at Becky’s in 30 minutes.  I wanted nothing to do with leaving where I was.  Me, in my orb of tranquility.

I hopped in the shower.  As I buffed and scrubbed, I groaned internally.  There was a friend of a friend visiting.  I was already exhausted at the thought of entertaining someone new and pretending to be interested in anything outside of what I knew.  We all have those moments, when you want to just rest in your inner circle and your ability to be cordial wanes. 

It was an unseasonably warm October night.  It felt closer to summer than Fall and so I threw on cut off’s, an oversized white t-shirt I had bought in London the weekend before and a rustic chambray shirt I had recently purchased trying to convince myself that I could bring the style back.  Slid on my Frye’s, opted out of makeup because I had no concern for what I would look like, slapped my hair into a bun, grabbed some wine and Crabbies at the liquor store and headed on my way.

I stumbled into Becky’s with Libby nipping at my knees and did my usual boisterous hello.  There were my friends, old and new, sitting around the table…and there was he.  The friend of a friend.  The person I had begrudgingly already been annoyed with before I had met him, knowing full well that everyone would rely on me to be his source of entertainment because that’s what I excelled at. 

To describe energy is impossible.  There is nothing that suits it.  There are no words.  What he looked like was nothing that resonated within me.  In fact, I’m not sure now it even does.  I know that he is beautiful but it means nothing – if that makes sense? It was this confusing, exhilarating energy that flowed between us that sort of knocked me out of my stability.  I walked slowly into the living room cursing myself for looking like a homeless person and for not preparing myself.  Why the Hell don’t I ever know when these people will come into my life?  Can’t someone give a sign? Something so in the very least so that I look like whom I can be?  Why have 3 people fallen into my life when I am at the most very careless version of myself?  I digress.

There he was.  There I was.  Energy illuminated.  However this time, I told myself not to succumb to it.  I had been there before.  It hurt in the end because most soul connections such as this appear to teach you something and then leave - and that leaving can be wrenching.  It was a road I wasn’t going to walk.  So I was I.  I subliminally threw my hands to the Universe and just enjoyed my night - I could do this...make nothing of it.  Ignore it.  

I saw his eyes consistently on me - as I moved he seemed to move around me and I always found us encircling each other.  I blamed the booze.  I chatted him up with careless banter and although I wanted to make the entire room disappear and tell him that I missed him and fill him on all of the things that happened since I had seen him last so many lifetimes ago, I did nothing.  Because these things, if you don’t understand them, are too much for others to take. And how do you explain things to a stranger that you've already met?  You can't. 

We all decided that after hours of libations we should walk downtown.  After all, we had a visitor in our presence; the local dive bar was a crucial tourist attraction to chalk off of the list. 

I walked in the street and immediately he was beside me.  Becky bellowed in the background to slow down so that her heels could keep up….in truth, I ignored her, I wanted that moment.  He and me.  As we walked, I counted, unnoticed by all, 5 streetlights blew out as we past them.  Energy is everywhere.  It at times knows far more than we do.  

Rounds of drinks flowed.  Whiskey.  Laughter.  He kept looking.  Curious.  At one point I covered my eyes.  The intensity of his stare too much.  He grabbed my hands. “Why,” he asked.  “It’s too much, you’re looking through me,” I replied peeking out of my fingers.  He laughed.  The knowing. 

The night went on.  Laughter.  Libations.  Haze.  I had offered up my house as a hostel given that we had more visitors in town than Becky’s house could hold and some had agreed to take me up on it. 

We walked home and held hands.  Two strangers.  Holding hands as if they had known each other for a hundred lifetimes.  I gave them a tour of the house.  He attempted to kiss me in every room.  “No.” quite simply was my response.  I had no interest.  I mean, there was interest but I already knew the ending and so I felt the need to protect my heart. But there was this gravity pulling.  It's so difficult to resist that type of pull when it's everything for the most part, we as humans seek.

Eventually, the world went to sleep except us and we lost friends in empty bedrooms.  I stood in my living room, explaining the two prints on the wall, being photographs that I had taken, that I was so proud of…he walked slowly toward me, he cupped my face with both of his hands, and I gave in. 

To be kissed, to be kissed soulfully, is something that there are not words for.  To have energy that you can’t explain, to have words that make no sense because they seem so trivial – that they can only resonate in contact, that is everything.  And so, I guess that was that moment, and the many that proceeded.  And so I did something I hadn’t done in a decade….I let a soul mate in.

Happy Full Moon Blessings and Merry New Year

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Not sure about all of you but 2012 was an insane year for me.  One of complete emotional and spiritual evolution.  The largest portion of which was releasing myself of people, things, memories, places, actions, reactions, and emotions, which no longer served my present or my future.  This was something I have needed to do for a long time but hadn’t been able.  It was an intense year but a cathartic year – one of which I believe has built the foundation that will allow me the ability to have much greater light in my life moving ahead.

It was the year of the Shaman, and the therapist, hopping on many airplanes, strangely amazing conversations with strangers, slamming into a soul mate, a hawk, sunshine, music, rainbows, quitting my job to begin a new adventure, giving myself time, growing a garden, forgiveness without an apology, painting a fence blue, past life regression, writing, healing, crying, anchors, laughing hysterically, loving hard, communing with the Universe, pictures, water, and above all else, friendship. 

In many ways, I’d like to believe it was the year that became my beginning.  The beginning of everything to come. The beginning of the next story.  I’m still processing it all.  There is emptiness in release and now my priority is to fill that space with the right things.  The best things.  Light.  Lasting light.

Which brings me to my New Years Resolution.  Which I never make – because I believe who we are, what we should do and be - should be a constant state of being, not a yearly effort, but this year, I’m going to force myself into remembering something.

I will no longer give what I do not receive.  There are 3 types of people in this world.  There are givers, there are takers and there are inbetweeners – (those that do neither).  I no longer have an interest in the latter two.  I am who I am.  I can’t help but give of myself.  It’s the only way that makes sense to me.  If I look you in the eye, tell you that you are loved by me, you will be, in every form I have for as long as I exist.  However, through most of my life, my mistake at times, has been to be to give to those who are undeserving.  For a long time I thought it was my destiny, to save and help others, to guide them, show them another way.  No.  It’s not.  It’s only the case for those that I learn from and am guided by as well.  The exhaustion of purging all of your soul, the lessons that you have learned through thousands of lifetimes and handing them a ginormous secret that many search lifetimes for is a robbery.  They need to find it themselves.  I have served no others of late by giving them light when it is their darkness they need to understand the most.

I will release myself of those who say they, they don’t have ‘time’…fuck off.  Time never ends.  You have time for anything that you choose.  Excuses are boring.  I have walked out of meetings, dinners, parties, and moments for a friend in need or for someone who just needed a smile – or more importantly acknowledgement.  Nothing is more important than to take a moment to acknowledge those in your Universe.  I will no longer make excuses for, or appease those that don’t exemplify this to make them feel better about their lack of depth.  We all have time to listen, to ask, to respond, to laugh, to care, to pay attention.  We have time for everything that means enough.  So, if I feel that I don’t mean enough, I’m eliminating you from my inner sanctity because trust me, those that are there are enough and you don’t belong within our circle. 

I speak all of this with love.  I can’t fault those that haven’t been through as much, or as many lives to understand.  But I will say this….this will be the year of Tarah going more quiet and focusing solely on those that love me as much as I love them.  I am blessed enough to have so many.  I stood outside with Kara this morning and said, “You guys make it really hard to be depressed.  I guess that’s why I always have you around me – because you always make me laugh.”  And that will be my mantra moving ahead - add to my spirit, - and my soul, love and friendship is yours.  Offer me nothing, and you will receive exactly that. 

The full moon blessing and purging to myself is one in the same.  Love, and be loved.  If not, let go because there is no place in my life for ambivalence.  Ambivalence is the opposite of love – or so the song says.  I am ambivalent about nothing.  You either have all of me or nothing and I won't waste your time with an in between.  Therefore I will choose to surround myself with the same.  If you love me, as a stranger, an acquaintance, a friend, a lover, then give me 100% - otherwise go away.  I have no need for half of anything.  This does not mean I will not always speak, interact and respond to you with kindness, it just means, you are no longer given back stage passes to my soul.

I will always have a life preserver on hand for those in need, however I’m going to conserve energy, and tend to my light and give it out sparingly to only those that have the same within them.  I will not be cold - I will just now be selective.  I’ve given enough.

So that is it.  My New Year.  A year of TT dimming her light so that it can preserved to shine brightest for those that need and deserve it most.  Perhaps even upon myself.  Time will tell – but my hope is for someone else to shine bright enough for me to take it in.  It would be nice to feel the warmth of something else.  I’ve spent a lifetime searching for that – I think I’m close…we shall see. 

Many full moon blessings.  I wish nothing but the greatest of love for each of us moving ahead.  The tides have turned; we stand in a place of release and hope if we allow for it.  Appreciate the gifts that you have been given.  Acknowledge them, show them gratitude and release the rest.  Stand with sunlight on your face and take a deep breath.  The best is yet to come.  Just love well and love right.  Right.  Don’t disregard those and that which has brought you beauty.  Nourish it - them...  For those that have stripped you from joy, I pray you can find a way to forgive and wash them away with the tide and begin anew.  We have lost so much, and gained even more.  Find your more and hold that tightly.

Merry New Year.  

Thanks for listening. xo

After the Storm

Please note, there might be exaggerations to the actuality of this story, however in the moment, it is what I felt…and so that is what I will write. 

It was a gorgeous summer weekend.  Jon, Rosie, Mikey and I had decided to hide out at a yacht club on the boats in Rockport.  We spent two days lounging in the sun, swimming, tooling around in the skiff, sipping on cocktails, reading, napping, laughing…being.  Although we were only a matter of miles from home, it felt like we were a million miles away.  For a moment, life was quiet and perfect and peaceful.

As Sunday began to come to a close, Mikey and I decided to head back.  Leaving the placid waters of the inlet that had protected us for two days, everything turned.

When we got out into the open ocean, there was no peace.  There was no calm.  The ocean had turned.  A southeasterly wind kicked in, slamming 6-foot swells sideways against the boat.  There was no choice but to get across, unprotected in an open Sea Vee.  We were too far out to turn around and ultimately, what was the point, we were already too deep in.  It felt as if we were in a fucking tornado spinning us sideways.

For anyone who has ever been on the boat with Mikey, you know that he is the most solid and safe of sailors.  Nobody knows or interprets the sea or the land better than him.  I have always had the ultimate faith that he will protect me.  But in that moment, with the boat flying in the air, with water filling and covering the boat sideways, I was terrified.  My hands were melting from gripping the bars of the boat so intensely to stay grounded.  Tears were streaming down my cheeks and for a moment, I believed the one thing that I have always loved the most, the ocean, was going to be the one thing that would destroy me. 

For the first time in all of these years on the water together, Mikey turned around and looked at me and said, “T, I think you should put a life jacket on.”  My heart stopped.  So this is it….I thought.  This is how it all ends.  “If you aren’t going to put one on, neither am I,” I said back.  And so I sat there, gripping, holding on for dear life as the boat was throttled from side to side being pounded and assaulted by waves. 

Mikey has always been an anchor for me since I met him.  A source of calm and peace.  The intensity of which he was navigating us through this moment and his silence more than anything was all too telling of the severity of it.  His normal sense of humor and ease was lost and I felt nothing short of complete dread. 

And then, there was strange peace.  In ultimate fear, I found this ironic peace.  I looked around me.  Sailboats toppling on their sides, the Sea Vee crashing against waves, my skin and body drenched, and I felt peace.  There was nothing I could do but hold on.  And when you have nothing else, that’s what’s you do.  Hold on. 

Every minute or two Mikey would shout out how many minutes more we had to go through this to get across and so I counted minutes and held on.  I had to have faith in something so I had faith in minutes.  After all, anyone can get through a minute.  So each minute we got through. 

About 40 minutes later, we had made it across.  We waited for a bridge to open across the other side of Gloucester Harbor - the boat still being slammed but closer to shore I had found grounding. And then the bridge opened and we crossed. 

What happened next, seemed almost surreal.

We crossed underneath this bridge.  This seemingly simple understated, quiet, small bridge and there, the water was placid, quiet.  The sun was shining and there wasn’t an inkling of evidence that there had ever been even a remote wake.  All was calm.  In my mind, we had almost died and then there was this?  How could this even be?  I looked at Mikey, and all I knew to say was, “Drinks?” and I turned to the cooler to grab anything that would imbibe me with a sense of calm.

We traveled quietly through the waters of the Annisquam and said nothing.  Each of us I believe unraveling from the chaos.  At times, there are no words, when you feel such intensity and come down to realize that you had in fact survived. 

Once we passed through the river, we had one more pass of open ocean to find our way home.  I was afraid, and Mikey looked at me and promised it would be easier.  And it was.

We drove home across the ocean with the sun setting in the West and Mikey did something he never does.  He left his Captain’s stance.  He sat beside me and drove the boat with his feet.  And we laughed.  A delirious, holy shit we made it laugh.  The ocean was calm again and we were silly and insane and we toasted to our survival and we mocked my fear and breathed sighs of relief.  We had made it and the sun was guiding us home.

For all of the chaos in life over the past many months I think of this moment often.  Making it through the storm.  Finding calm, the sun shining on my face.  Isn’t it so symbolic?  This is life.  Terrifying, confusing, breakable, but then you have these glimpses of placidity. 

Isn’t this the past many months?  A tornado that we’ve all been flying and spun in?  And here we are, waiting for the bridge to open, to bring us to the other side.  To calm, quiet waters and sun shining on our face…..isn’t it?  You just have to hold on.  Grip as hard as you can.  But don’t let go. Because there is another side.  Promise.  The waves will calm and the sun will always guide you home.

Tornado

I was asked yesterday, “Who do you want to be through this process?  What do you need to get you through it and who do you want to be when it’s done?”  It sort of stopped me in my tracks.  I had thought for so long that I knew exactly who I was but in truth, all of that seems a bit lost and scattered these days.  This process of change, growth, and the re-birth I’ve been fighting for over the past year is so overwhelming that at times I stumble.  Not to disregard the beauty in it - but letting go of that which you can't control can at times invoke such fear of the unknown that we falter.

I question this: If what we do in life is ultimately so that we can teach it to ourselves because we need it for ourselves then why aren’t I learning?  Why can’t I feel it? If at the core of my being I find true solace in helping others why is it that I can’t be the same comfort to myself?   Heed my own words and guidance.  Most often, I do the exact opposite of what I would advise to all of you because I can only shine light outward.  Does that make sense? 

Every time I try to move lately, it feels as if my feet are about to buckle underneath me.  And all of the energy that I hold is barely my own and it’s taken over the rest.  I spin in this circle, like a fucking tornado sinking into the ocean and I am drowning – and I have no idea why.  I just need a rope…something to fall out of the sky to hold on to but there’s nothing there.  It’s the blessing and the curse of being an empath.  I feel everything that emanates off of everyone else and it sinks me. 

All of this came after finding myself spiritually in the best place I’ve ever been just a few short months ago.  And then smack – brute force gravity pulled me back to earth.  I have been told that I’m still moving on a forward trajectory but that like a roller coaster, you have to dip down to build momentum to climb back up.  But it doesn’t feel like that today and existing with all of these human emotions of anguish is a road I’m having difficulty navigating. 

Who I want to be in this process is a light to myself.  A compass.  An anchor.  And who I want to be when it’s done is lighter.  Free with no rearview mirrors.  I want to be sitting with the sunlight on my face knowing that I made it to the edge of the cliff and I didn’t fall off…I dove.  My choice.  Because that’s what we all need to understand isn’t it?  That all of this is our choice.  Who we choose to be.  What we choose to feel and what we choose to believe.  What we allow ourselves to hold onto or release. I’m creating my own tornado right now.  I know this.  Everything that was beautiful still exists, it’s just a matter of letting it back in.  But to do that, I have to release the idea of what it’s supposed to be because I can’t choose that.  Only the Universe can.  Because the Universe doesn't give you what you want, it gives you what you need - as difficult as that is at times to embrace.

You know when you wake up at night, and walk in darkness and you kind of know where you’re going but you hold onto the wall to guide you and you're half asleep and more than tired – and then you trip over something on the floor and stub your toe?  That’s what this is.  I’ve stubbed my toe but I still know where I’m going.  And it hurts but by the time I get across the darkness that will have passed.  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. 

Thanks for listening.  xo