It’s true.  Not everything will be okay. This is not okay. It’s the deepest ache. It’s a solid core of loss layered on top of loss. I know it is.

But there you are in that small, quiet room, and although it – all of it – may not be okay – you will.

You will.

I feel this deep and true and right in the marrow of my bones. You will be okay and more than okay and so much more than you could possibly know.

There will be love. The kind of love that changes everything. And maybe more heartache. And so much laughter and breathless kisses and the hard fall of tears.

There is so much more ahead.  And it is so very good.  I promise.  I know this.

I hope that I get to see you love what you are. To know yourself as gift and worth and truth.

That you see what a huge thing it is to have the courage to break your own heart.  That you have chosen wholeness – even when it has shattered you. And that you will one day see that you can be whole and broken in the exact same spaces, that they nestle side by side – and that this is the way of things.  Not your punishment for wrongdoing, or for not trying hard enough – but just the way of things.

That you can stand and look at yourself in a mirror and see your goodness right there, see the worth of what you bring on the surface of your skin, just like I do.  That you trust there is brilliance to come.

That you own what is yours to own, both the bad AND the good.  That you do not insist on owning it all.  It was never all yours to hold.  Release to the wind, love.  Let it be carried away on the breeze.

It does not serve you now.

I know you, and your darkness and your shadow and all the things for which you practice self-flagellation.  And I still see you as good, and true and strong and powerful and exquisitely present in this world.

You have not chosen the easy way. Life has not granted you a gentle path. Not even close. But you have followed your own trail, again and again and again. You have done what you needed to move forward. You have placed one foot in front of the other and kept on going – even when that was the most difficult thing to do.

You have defined your space and your territory.  You have said  ‘This is mine.  You may not enter now’.  And you meant it. And you stood by it, even when it was impossibly hard.

And all of this, my friend, is no small thing. 

In fact, these are all very large things.  Infinite and powerful and true.

The voices in your head that say otherwise? These are born not from truth but from the stories others have created for you. These stories do not have to be yours. Even if they once were, you need not accept them any longer.

Give them back. Every last one.

You’ll write a new story now, on a blank page, with a new pen and in your own incomparable voice.

I wish for you so very much. Seaside wishes and spin the bottle daydreams. Lucky pennies and shooting stars. A safe place to fall and a high place to leap from into the deepest pool of the clearest water.

I hope that you shed the shackles of past and grief and loss and betrayal.  That you are possessiveness of your own wilderness.  That you stake your claim and encircle your space with charm and enchantment and only grant entrance to those who bring you fully alive.

I wish for you space to cultivate a relationship with your own divinity. No external god, but the divine that lives within your own stubbornly pulsing heart. I wish you the energy and emotion of the greatest love affair, given as a gift to yourself.

That you come home to the woman you are and the woman you are becoming. And then I hope you find what it is to love another in your mother tongue, a love that requires no translation and only delivers the ease of being fully known and fully seen.

A love that brings you alive and that carries you home.

No mistake, this is the phoenix fire part.

The burning down to ashes part.

The preparing to rise again.

This is a space without anchor, without moorings. Even the north star may be obscured by clouds.

But your compass lies within.

Your soul knows your truth north.

Can find it without map or directions.

You need only trust yourself enough to listen to the whispers of your valiant soul.

Lay your head in my lap, love. Tell me your stories.  The ones that have formed you into the gift that you are.

Now take a breath and let it go. Let it all go. Let the sea breeze carry it away. Let your tears fall.

You will be held now.  You will be carried. You can stop running. You can cease the endless motion and constant struggle.

You are home. You can rest now. You are safe.

And maybe, just maybe, now you can be still.

The post the solid core of loss upon loss. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

We discuss
often
our past lives.
the way we have
been lover
and mother
and child
and midwife
and brother
and husband
and guru
to each other
a dozen
lives
at least
before
finally
crashing
here
in this desert
we make home
despite the
fact that
our souls
never stop
calling
for the
sea

we once
decided
a book
we proclaimed
we will write
and remember
all that we
have been
and done
and learned
together
yes
we smiled
and leaned our heads
together
like we have done
a million
times
at least
your light
corkscrews
mingling
with my inky
strands
our mirror
souls
coming
info perfect
alignment

and although
in typical
flighty
fashion
we’ve not
written a word
it doesn’t
really matter
none of it
really matters
not with us
not the where
or when
or what or why or
how much
or the indecisive days
or the stagnant months
or the hard years
what matters is
the afternoons
in bed
doing nothing
and the way
we always
mean to say
one more thing
before handing up
the phone.
what matters is
the open door
at 2am, and
the hands that
shake with anger
heal with energy
and the way
without writing
a word
we already
know the ending
of the book

it’s us
of course
us and
the pounding
pacific
back to back
your light
corkscrew curls
once again
mingling with my
inky straight
strands
the salt on our skin
and in our veins
and the words we
say
that our
hearts have
always known.
Of course.  It
has always
been
you.

The post Happy Birthday – Dear One appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

{on my desk sits a black fabric journal.  it is a plain, ordinary, nondescript book. from the outside, it looks as if it could not possibly hold anything important.  only I know that it holds the most valuable thing I possess. my story.}

5.22.09

I’m in birthday party hell.

I’m standing in the middle of Dave and Busters (which, for those who are not familiar, is like Chuck E Cheese on steroids).  The bright flashing lights and the incessant beeping and buzzing have brought me to a level of overstimulation that mimics a really trippy high.  All around me I see glass-eyed parents and kids, feeding tokens into games, fixated on collecting long snakes of tickets to trade in for any number of crappy plastic toys or candy.  It’s like the very worst of Vegas, ripe for a membership drive for a future meeting of gamblers anonymous.

And in the midst of one of those spectacularly surreal ‘this is my life?’ moments, when Julie is deliberating between multiple versions of Hannah Montana flashlight key chains and Bella tries to stretch her points as far as they can possibly stretch (consumer culture microcosm anyone?) my cell phone buzzes in my pocket. And then buzzes again, and again, and again.

I pull it out and I see four texts from Mani.  My first thoughts it that something is wrong, but then I open my phone and all the flashing and buzzing and chaos fades away as I read:

I had the sudden urge to tell you I love you
no matter what and for always
and to take you on a boat,
sailing toward the horizon
until we couldn’t see the shore
and have you look around
at the endless expanse of sparking sea,
and realize that it belonged to you.
every last drop.
and I wanted to let you in on my secret,
because I know we can breathe underwater.
because it is time you realized
that you will never drown.
we don’t drown. we adapt.
we don’t get swept away.
we drift, we ride current, we grow gills, we grow wings.

And in the moment that I absorbed those words I let that exquisite act of kindness wash over me. I let her love and compassion and wisdom soak into me in waves of bliss and I had an experience of momentary but utterly perfect serenity.

It is not just that she wrote those words (for I know her to be a woman who experiences her existence in poem), nor the fact that she would hold flawed, messed up little me with such utter tenderness (for even can occasionally accept that I am worthy of such emotion).  No – it was none of those things that evoked such reverence.  What matters is that she took those thoughts, those feelings, those words, the cadence of that poem and she sent it spinning out into the universe directly to me and placed it in my heart like the most precious treasure.

And I can’t help but wonder – what if every time I thought of someone with tenderness and compassion or gratitude, I took the next step and gifted them with that in the purest form possible?  What if we sent our love spinning out into the universe more often?  Once every day.  Ten times.  Twenty.  One hundred.  What if we did it and shared it and then others followed suit?

What if we gave it just one day, and every time we thought of someone with love – even if it’s not someone with whom we normally interact – we took the time to let them know? If every time we were inspired by a line on a blog we took a moment to make a few extra mouse clicks and leave a comment?  If every time someone opened the door for us we looked them right in the eye, connected ourselves to them through our shared humanity and not only said thank you, but meant it and felt it with every part of our being.

Mani could have had those thoughts tonight in the midst of caring for her girls or studying for her midwifery exam or a million other things that fill her life to overflowing and pushed them away as nothing more than thoughts.  But she didn’t, she held on to them and gave them shape and sent them to me on a crazy night in the middle of a crazy week filled with guilt and blame and self-recrimination and bitchy, snappy base level parenting and stress in a ball that pounds in my chest.  She gave them to me, and she didn’t just change things for me, she changed things for everyone I will come in contact with tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the next.

Because if she can hold me in such tenderness and I can allow myself to be held, I feel certain that I can extend that outward in all directions.

And really, that’s all that needs to happen to change the world. `

The post words :: revisited appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.