Liberated Lines - A Reflection

I took the Liberated Lines  course for the first time last week. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect beyond "7 days of poetry and photography prompts," as promised by the website, but I knew Alisha Sommer, was one of the women leading the course, and I knew that every word of hers I'd ever read seemed to stir something inside of me, and make me remember things about myself that at some point I'd forgotten. So, I was excited to begin, despite not being entirely sure what was ahead. 

When I was in high school, I watched a movie called, Fools Rush In, about a million times. It was a sweet RomCom, and I have soft spot for RomComs. Plus, Salma Hayek is in it and I love Salma Hayek. Toward the end of the movie, Hayek's love interest turns to her and says, "You're everything I never knew I always wanted." I love that line, and it's how I feel about Liberated Lines... almost. 

The course was everything I didn't realize I had been needing. 

There were places inside of me that needed a voice, but I didn't even know they were there. The unique and beautiful way in which Alisha Sommer and Robin Sandomirsky crafted each prompt gave those parts of me a chance to speak.

I feel lighter, clearer, and freer after this week of amplifying myself, and I am so grateful to Alisha and Robin for creating this space. 

 

To learn more about the course, check out the link above. There's another session coming up in April that I've already marked in my planner. I hope you'll try it too. 

Liberated Lines - Day Seven

I have delayed making decisions, hoping I would first find someone that would give me permission to make them. Hoping they would provide some insurance policy beyond my own judgement, so that I would always be able to fall back on, well, so and so thought it was a good idea. 

I have been afraid of my own mind, skeptical of my own intuition, eager to relinquish the rights to my life and give them over to others.

I have declared myself unfit to govern myself, again and again and again. I have loved myself less, stripped myself of my own power and called it humility, because I did not know how, or was afraid to own every bit of my being. I have traded happiness for approval and run my voice through filter after filter to make it more pleasing to the ears it would fall upon, regardless of the strain it caused me. I have made myself less. And in doing so, I have put myself in a box, but lately I can feel the seams of the walls buckling around me, and the lid shifting above me.

I do not belong here anymore, and truly I never did. It is time I set myself free.

Liberated Lines - Day Five

I found her there tucked beneath the fear and the weight of everything I'd ever been because I thought I should be, and not because I was.

She was changed by the pain of years that were scarce in kindness, but still she was beautiful, with bright stitching in all the places she'd sewn herself back together.

I'd kept her locked away, sometimes on purpose, sometimes because it didn't seem there was any other way to survive, and when it came time to find her she was something between hidden and buried. I opened a door and she rose up to greet me and help me be more of myself. 

Liberated Lines - Day Four

Lite

I hold myself steady and keep my mouth shut, though my lips come close to trembling with the desire to part. My fingers itch to pick up pen, paper, marker, crayon, or to at least rest their tips on keys or screen, but I bid them be still. I gather up my strength and place a dam between myself and action, between me and all the things I could say. I wait for the jitters to subside. I wait to feel the release that means I am no longer resisting myself. And though I am the one who has done this to me, I still marvel at how much power there is in this stillness, this place without words, this recognition that just because I can doesn't mean I should. 

 

Bright

She is always there. For always. Since always. She is there in the quiet and even in the moments I deny her. She persists. She listens to my heart when I choose to be deaf to its beating and whispers its secrets to me when I am ready to listen. I wonder at her fortitude, that she could remain so strong when at times I've given her only the barest essentials to live on. I stand in awe of her patience in the face of all my doubt. She is the best of me, and she is me at my best. She is the stuff of best intentions and dreams that never died. 

Liberated Lines - Day Three

Sit down. Cross one leg over the other. Close Eyelids. Breathe. Breathe Deep. 

I chase away the to do lists that quicken my heartbeat and disrupt the pattern of my respirations. My mind is resistant to wander. It tiptoes into the space for dreaming, and it is several breaths before it is comfortable there. But then it happens. I see the life I only ever talk about in fragments, always afraid to lay it all out at any one time, in any one place lest it seem too ambitious, in case by speaking it, I somehow manage to jinx it, or spook it, or otherwise keep it from being. I see it all there in bold, vibrant colors. I can feel what it is like to inhabit my body in that place of fulfillment and peace and wonder, and it is brilliant. My body vibrates with excitement and I somehow know that I truly can have all of this if only I would dream with my eyes open. 

Liberated Lines - Day Two

I am standing in front of the mirror again, as this has inadvertently become a part of my morning ritual. I promised myself that this year I would put some effort into loving my outside. This is not to say I would neglect my inside, but I was beginning to realize I couldn't fully manage one without the other. So, I stand in front of the mirror and look up, and pour love into all the places I usually poke and prod.

And I bestow blessings on this body that has carried me for decades and been a constant home for a spirit that waxed and waned until I learned to fortify myself from within. 

I rest my hands on my hips and give thanks to these bones that have shifted and spread to accommodate life and usher something made between the love of my life and me and God into the world, and feel almost petulant for daring to pepper these bones that have made space for miracles with insults. But I remind myself that part of loving me means forgiving me. 

So, I stand in front of the mirror on this new day and practice seeing myself as love would have me appear. 

 

Read more of my Liberated Lines posts here. 

Liberated Lines - Day One

I am taking a course with the lovely Alisha Sommer and Robin E. Sandomirsky called Liberated Lines, 7 days of poetry and photographic prompts. Today is day one, and the prompt was: 

Today we invite you stop ten times, or twenty, and notice your self and your life. Begin a collection of what you already are when you wake, over breakfast, as you drive to the grocery store, as you are loved, as you are forgotten or passed over. 

Capture one, some, or all of these moments. Use an image and your words to begin to build this bridge to your self.  You. In this moment You.  

Here are mine:

  • When I sat at the table scrawling the words of others onto the empty page, with the sound of cartoons pulsing and fading in the background, and then my husband passed behind me and squeezed my shoulder so that I would know he was there and he loved me, and I felt connected to every bit of my life. 
  • Bouncing around, pivoting left, then right, then right again. Pacing a pathway into the carpet that mirrors the directions my mind has taken, until I catch my reflection in the dark television screen, sink to my knees and tell myself I can still be me when I am still. 
  • There was a package lying on the table waiting for me, but I didn't notice it since I was only using my eyes enough to navigate furniture and not enough to really see, because the rest of my vision was focused inward.
  • Settling into my old stride, flipping back and forth in the pages of my planner, mapping out a life fortified by dreams. 
  • i see the moon/ the moon sees me/ i push/ she pulls/ i let go
  • Me and this paper and the sound of the pen scratching its surface, tattooing each line with fixed and fleeting thoughts. 
  • amidst the clang of pots/ and the sounds of persistent simmering/ stir, boil, breathe deep/ meals that smell like home
  • i hear them call me/ mama/ from three rooms away, like a whisper on the wind/ and i second guess whether i really heard anything at all/ or am just remembering the way it feels/ to be needed
  • I said no, and I didn't second guess it. My voice was steady and there was no accompanying explanation. No, no, and... No, but... no, because... just no. Because it is complete unto itself, and I am allowed to choose myself. 
  • I am excited to close my eyes, then open them again with all of the wisdom I gained while I was sleeping. 

 

Writing for Me

For weeks I have been seeing signs (almost daily) telling me that I should do what I am afraid to do, that I should speak the stories that are getting caught in my throat, and write the ones that are making my hands shake as I clutch the pen or stroke the keys.

I had been ignoring these messages, but then I began to wake up with words on the tip of my tongue, and my heart felt as though it was near bursting for all the things I was not saying.

It seemed there were some secrets, some old hurts, some healing, some earned wisdom that were determined to make their way into the world, one way or another whether I allowed them passage or not. I realized then that we are not in always control of what we share, but we can have a hand in how. I am working on the how. As the words come to me I write them down. I don't worry about editing them, I just let them flow.

I go back, read them, feel my heart flutter with that familiar fear that says "you should not be writing this," and then I put them away before I am overcome by the urge to alter them, censor them, soften their edges. 

I hope to release these stories out into the world one day, but for now, the reader I am writing for is me. And not just present me, but also for adolescent me, young adult me. Though, I worry about how she would receive what I'm writing. What would she think of the way I see the life we lived? How would she feel about these lessons I wish I could share with her? Would she be proud of what we have become?

 

 

Love is patient, Love is kind...

When I hug my son he tells me, "I love you too, mama." When I lift him up first thing in the morning and nuzzle my nose in his neck, breathing in the last vestiges of baby that still cling to him, he says it. "I love you too, mama." All throughout the day, I speak no words, but he hears me anyway and acknowledges my silent gestures with, "I love you too mama."

The first time he did it, I froze. I just looked at him, and kept looking at him, long after he'd wriggled out of my arms, and moved on to some new activity. For him our exchange was nothing to ponder. It was simple. I thought about how we (we being adults on the whole) believe love to be some complicated thing, but maybe it's not.

Maybe love is simple. 

Maybe we come into the world knowing what love feels like, looks like, sounds like, and it's only what we learn and tell ourselves about what love "should" be, that makes it seem so complex. Maybe we could all use some time getting back in touch with our 3 year old selves, who knew love could be found in a look, or a smile, or even shared silence. 

My son has made me more mindful about the love I show myself and those around me, because it is so much than the words we say.