“Think of something you said. Now think of what you wish you had said.”

I wish I had said no. I wish I hadn’t answered the email. I wish I had said I’m too busy, too stupid, too illiterate, I have no language, I have no thoughts, I am empty headed.

I wish I had said yes. I wish I had taken her home and given her hot chicken soup made by my own hands. I wish I had insisted. I wish I had told her not to leave. Give me a chance, I could have cried.

Why is it so hard to see the future, the damage that is to come? Why is it so hard to see the solution is to give more, not back away? How many times have I let others make mistakes before I realize I could save a lot of heart-aches? Most of all, my own.

Things I didn't know I love

Things I didn’t know I love--- prompt for Midtown Writer's group July 7th, 2007

I didn’t know I love air conditioning until I started having hot flashes. I love cool breezes in the middle of the night instead of huddling under a pile of blankets. My room in the basement is my cave of dreams. I incubate secrets into poems and my thrashing about with God becomes a prayer. It is cool and dark—all that I never wanted when I was light and bright and always chilled to the bone every winter.

Or is it the testosterone they say I gain by losing estrogen?

I didn’t know I love to be alone after a lifetime of collecting groups together—and this is not to say I don’t love company. I didn’t know the clarion call of my own soul and my own thoughts would be able to keep me entertained sufficiently to last through the coming sunset years. I always leaped up to make a phone call in the middle of my reveries. I still yearn for the most intimate of human connections—but I also cherish each moment of deepening silence when I let myself go there. Through flood watch and hurricane, through death and the crematorium’s smoky plumes, through celebration of a published poem, a sold painting, a child’s first step, an exchange of vows in an afternoon dappled lawn, yes, I need you there, my family, my tribe, my audience, my beloved, wearing the face of the Divine for me. But then what delight to let you go away so I can have me all to myself.

For this reason, I had to leave every place I fell in love with. For this reason I don’t know where I will end up being able to stay.