{we live our lives in real time. an unceasing go-go-go and give-give-give. it can get messy, and tangled and so easy to forget ourselves in the midst of it all. but sometimes, right when it is needed the most, there will come a night when the universe gifts us with the path back home}
Tonight is a night for a hard pour of whiskey in a mason jar. It’s the way the ice cracks and the heart says ‘ Oh yes, I know exactly how that feels’.
It’s for sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor and cupping both hands around your glass and closing your eyes and breathing deep and raising it to your lips. It is soaking in the ritual this small act can be when when you allow yourself the gift of it.
It’s the way lips feel as they hit the cold mouth of the jar, and the perfect burn that remains after the glass is pulled away.
It’s blood red candles on salt-water stones and the burn down smell of matches and smoke.
It’s the amber oil carefully applied on touch points and then glided liberally on bare skin until you ground into the scent of yourself.
It’s hot pink knee socks and tangled hair and messy eyeliner. It’s that perfect black beanie and that loose weave black sweater that just covers the tops of thighs and shows the shadowed outline of everything underneath.
It’s for music that hurts, but only the exact right kind of ache that has an edge that mingles with its sweetness in such a way that they could never be untangled. That should never be untangled. Because there are some things for which the ache is a part of the beauty.
It’s the night you stop avoiding the words that never stop chasing you. Where you sink into the solitude and finally breath out all that air trapped in lungs, waiting for space to fully exhale.
It’s the knowing that at some point tonight there will be dancing. That you’ll follow the movements of your body on the wall, silhouette painted by the shadows of candlelight. That you’ll spin your hoop on your hips until something rises in you that has not risen in a long, long time.
It’s a night for coming home and gathering in and calling in the powers of the witch and the howl of the wolf. For laying out the stones and speaking mantra and sitting still inside the space of the holy that remains when the reverberation of sound ceases.
It’s the way when you tilt the glass all the way up and the candle light glows through and you know your face is illuminated in the most holy of ways. And the song that holds an inexpressible ache plays with every last bit of memory it holds and you are thankful, even for that. Especially for that.
It’s for broken seashells and wood that looks like bone, for cigar boxes and rusted locks and for running your fingers along all the things collected. For feeling the memories that live in each one travel from fingertips to center and hearing the whispers of all the stories you have not yet told.
It’s for knowing that some stories must remain untold in order for others to be born.
It’s for remembering last night – lying in bed. Listening to her fingers plucking guitar strings – inexplicably remembering just where to place each one in this pattern that I can’t sort out but that lives inside of her muscle memory. And listening as she plays words born inside of her that tell the story of her life and all the ways she remembers herself. And to give thanks for the vulnerable gift of that. Because when someone gives you their art you can only ever be humbled in the face of its truth.
And that moment is also to know the hope and the struggle and the stay still and the run away and the come here and the push back. And also what it is to say yes, to be present exactly where you are.
It’s for the space where the empty of missing and the gratitude for solitude meet in perfect center. Where you know that one brings fullness to the other and so give thanks for both.
It is a night for contemplating grace. Grace that looks like the orange wool blanket curled around legs and tastes like chocolate and peanut butter for dinner and sounds like this song that plays. The one that just over a year ago found you broken on this very floor. And now it greets you whole and strong in the not entirely unwelcome melancholy that we sometimes carry around once we’ve lived a certain amount of life full of truth and glory and loss and love.
It’s the way the candle looks as it burns down. The mellow that the whiskey spreads like hot wax melting into tight held bones. It’s the expansion into space. It’s the amber rising from wrists and temple and collarbones and belly and all that is carried inside of that scent.
It’s a night for calling the ghosts and welcoming the muse and sitting back while they dance, all liquid heat and yearning skin of lovers long separated.
It is a night for remembering. The words. The whiskey. The music. The candles. The amber. The loves long gone and the life that is here, right now.
It is a night for coming home.
To myself.
Blessed be.
{how do you remember yourself? what are the ways you come home to your heart? What is the path to returning to your center? Tell me now, pretty please. Comment here, send me a tweet or pour your soul into an email that will remain always just between you and me.}
