"Buildings and bridges
Are made to bend in the wind
To withstand the world,
That's what it takes
All that steel and stone
Is no match for the air, my friend
What doesn't bend breaks
What doesn't bend breaks
We are made to bleed
And scab and heal and bleed again
And turn every scar into a joke
We are made to fight
And fuck and talk and fight again
And sit around and laugh until we choke
Sit around and laugh until we choke"
- Ani Difranco, from "Buildings and Bridges"
On reading Heather Corinna's lyrical (as always/all ways) journal entry today ("Doors and Windows...", I reflect on the art that we are. That we create.
Being Magical Meaning Makers by nature, every single one of us is a poem and creates poetry: in movement, in the way we love one another, in the way(s) we wound one another, it can all be shapeshifted, metabolized, (re)created.
And of course, as I return to this post to update it and add an image, an ad pops up reading "eliminate and remove scars..." yes, it's a keyword thing...but I tip my hat to the Magic Meaning Maker as me, as well.
I heard it phrased so very well recently: we're all just truly doing the best we can...and sometimes we can seem to hurt one another doing so. But wounds heal, and so do hearts, and so do I.
Other brave Soliders of Love on the journey come to mind, Jennifer Cross, and Fresh White! among them, they have been in my mind's horizon of late, and the prolific and shy E. (who's in the process of her artistic outing) whose photography amazes me and sweet personality heartens me.
Many, many other Soliders come to mind, and we connect on the regular.
And me...I amaze myself.
Here I've been swimming in 0's and 1's, both working and playing, crafting a career through and creating art through online space...over years, over time, and feeling as though I'm barely beginning.
But aren't we all becoming multi-hypenates, and isn't the Internet informing our ways and means of doing so? And isn't this a new age of as yet unnamed Creation, Self Creation, Re-Creation?
Heather's post about art... (created to articulate intimate partner violence, no less!) on moving, moving on, emotions that are moving and then moving through you, moving beyond...really touched my heart in ways that are beyond articulation. God/dess bless us, as spirits, we effort with earnestness, always striving to articulate elements of living that are so often beyond words. Striving to heal and disabuse and salve, even sometimes in spite of our own sweet selves....
And thank God/dess for art, in that regard. Heather's words today move me in ways that are still marinating, cooking, flowering. I encourage you to read them and see how this speaks to your heart. My retelling or contextualizing her story, her artistry, would not at all do it justice.
Today is my (re)birthday, and I'm outing my value more and more--first to myself--in myriad ways, myriad vessels. And my love spills over, through, around, inside all of them: radio, photography, painting, multi-genre music, singing, dance, multi-genre writing, holistic healing studies, metaphysical courses, living, loving, nurturing, PR for others (as a healing art)...I am fully aware how imperfectly perfect I can be (phrase/word order intentional) by being such a lil' jack-of-all-trades.
Elements of this life can be a war...a war for us to fight to better...to refine...our thoughts, ideas, words, thoughts, deeds, self-love, and reflections of that. I'm fully aware that my perpetual adolescence in learning, in maturation, it means that sometimes I'll lose a Soldier of Love, or two. Or 1,000. Drop the ball and pick it back up again. How dear and how lucky for me that the Soldiers of Love who stay, lag behind a little until I catch up, can truly do so. And what a blessing that I can do that for them, too.
Such a delicious realization on such a poignant day for me...delight today in my friends' sweet birthday gifts, texts, emails, gifts of music, phone calls. Even my ex's mom checked in, little sweet surprises and gifts of reflection. And birthdays...such arbitrary holidays. And yet we imbue them with such delightful significance. Honoring of Self (one hopes). How delicious and delovely. Soft walk on the trail today. Soft luxuriation in the garden, and then back home to eat veggies from a mutual friend's farm. Veggies keep coming into our home, nurtured by our own hands, or our friends' hands. Delightfully "misshapen," blessed with the protection of sunkissed dirt and the Lovability inherent in Time, in Process.
Just like Us.
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