right at the center,

what feels like a split, a fault line or a fissure,

is really the whole in masquerade.

there is the one that is sharp and new.

that rages, probes, conspires,

reacts,

leans forward and back.

and there is the one that reaches down, and up. lives lifetimes, locks on,

and lets go.

this is the time when sanity is questioned and god is summoned.

when intimacy becomes owned, familiar,

craved.

this is the elbow thrust to the intercostal, purple bruise and

wind knocked out.

power-played and ego-ragged, worn fingertips on the edge of granite and vows.

this is irony and insight, tangled transcribing,

escaping, mirrors, and cliché.

this is what only feels like fragments, a pendulum ride

right at the center.

something tore me open last week. tore deep within me. something that triggered the oldest of wounds, and the biggest of fears. the story is painful. the details irrelevant.

matters of the heart are inherently messy, complicated, excruciating, and, ultimately, worth it. because in our relationships with one another, we get to see and be seen. we get to find out what we brought, what we received, what we gave, and what we withheld. we get to love and be loved. we get to make babies. we get to feel alive. and, if we are lucky, we get the opportunity to heal and know our wholeness.

i have no regrets. i have only a deep sadness and a pit in my stomach the size of a small continent. i continue to feel reverence and i can hear a whisper from my future self telling me that i will be okay. that we all will be ok.

i really only want happiness. the kind that comes from freedom. beauty. connection. still.

this is the choice that i see in front of me, and this is the doorway that i will continue to walk through.

photo: myself, in India, better than ok. shot by Simon Cordova.

when painful truth comes, the body reacts. it feels viral, like vertigo, compressing the insides and squeezing the lungs.

and when that truth has been withheld, when the details come too late, it is rattling, scrambling, past and present tense.

but still, no matter how long it has been kept locked up, no matter if it had to be begged and bargained for, or how violating and risky and weighted it may be, i continue to believe that living in truth will ultimately set us free.

only freedom right now feels lonely. frightening. final. and while i will sit in these feelings, and own my portion of the truth that brought them, i look forward to the next part. because this is really fucking hard.

and so as the sun rises before i’ve had any rest, as i wrap my arms around the most beautiful sleeping children, prepare breakfast, drive carpool, and ready myself for a big photo shoot tomorrow, i vow once again to show up without armour. raw. present. here.

belt sander, naked panes, and strangers looking in my windows. more in my driveway, with concrete and rebar and stone. i had to park in the back and come in through the garbage entrance. the dog is barking incessantly at the invasion of power tools, strange faces, and the telltale creak of the iron gate as they come back and forth, in and out, of the yard.

i close the curtains, light candles, put on the music, and attempt to pretend that all this isn’t happening. i initiate my new home yoga practice despite the unwelcomed renovation and disruption right outside. but the truth? i feel like i am in a fishbowl. vulnerable and pathetic as i am interrupted from my ugly cry in child’s pose to answer the door puffy eyed for the sorry man who needs me to turn the window cranks just a little more in the living room. it is not his fault. it is nobody’s fault. in a weird speech from the universe, i get it.

and so this is the way that i am beginning 2011. it isn’t all vision boards and intentions–yet. that would be so much prettier, but it just isn’t true right now. i am paying attention to what is happening in the present moment and, lucky for me, going to the bottom of shame and blame, feeling every last bit of it, is what is happening. it is as uncomfortable as a stranger looking in my windows, as disorienting as coming in through the garbage entrance, and as grating as the sound of a saw through stone. and while i spent a couple of days numbing with waffles and bad tv, seems those old patterns just aren’t what they used to be (or ever were). and so it is.

i had chosen a word for 2011: passion. only when i looked it up, i found that the word passion had its root in a greek word that meant “to suffer or endure.” i’m not a fan of anything linked to suffering, so, instead, i am taking on a new word; well, two words actually, wished for me at my birthday by a good friend. the definition i love for  “wild abandon” is “unrestrained freedom of action or emotion. to surrender to one’s impulses.” i really like the sound of that.

unrestrained freedom sounds mighty good right now.

happy 2011. may it be what it is. and may we show up with wild abandon, for all of it. something tells me that this just might be the ticket to boundless abundance and dreams coming true.