Wild Thing

I have really had my brain full recently. This has been one of the most therapeutic few weeks for me and I am feeling really incredible, after feeling really crappy. Again, I think it's the Spring thing, the rebirth thing, but for me it is also silently, quietly a reminder of 3 major springtime losses that I have had in my life, that I have never been able to grieve properly, or is that what I am doing now, this Spring in Lyon that feels so intense?

The loss of Michael, my closest friend in Philadelphia, who really got me and loved me the way I was, who whistled outside my window on summer nights, beckoning me to go out and be wild. He was stabbed to death on South Street the night before he took his architectural boards. He was a John Doe at the morgue because he didn't have his wallet on him. He was mad at me because I had left him behind and moved to New York. He would barely speak to me. He never forgave me, even though I tried to break through. The loss of Manny, my big brother in the city, Cajun boy, amazing chef who smoked cigars, shared my passion for France in a car, taught me about foie gras and Monbazillac, defended my broken heart (post Jean-Luc.) He drowned, scuba diving. He had just fallen in love. We had talked the week before. And, the illness of Halliday, my beautiful older daughter, which left scars on my life that will never go away, and on hers. Spring just feels so painful yet beautiful to me.

At 2 in the morning, when I could not sleep because I was so flipping angry at another male friend of mine (that, an entirely other story) and mostly angry at myself, again, I began making sense of all of these crazy feelings.

I am tired of being treated like I am invisible. I am tired of trying to get the attention of people who are too busy to be present. I am weary of those who cannot talk about what's really going on, or think deeply. I am sick of hearing myself talk. I am embracing the amazing young girl that I was and am trying so hard to be proud of my inner wildness and my unbridled creative spirit that has often been criticized, condemned. I am trying not to criticize myself. I am trying to look at the whole picture and not stumble into superficial holes. I want to tell the truth about a lot of things. I want to speak my mind even though it's just my mind. I am finished with my old story and am starting a new one, but I am reintroducing a character that I was told to leave behind, because she was so challenging, so untamable. I know that is the only way I can go forward and write my next chapter. I must wear myself like a badge of honor. Manny and Michael loved me as I was, crazy, wild, raw, emotional, so deeply sensitive, spontaneous, vulnerable, dependable, true...and selfishly, I feel such a loss without them in this world. My springtime loss, a deep hole I am trying to fill with reflection.

At 2 in the morning, I read my weekly horoscope. Here's what it said:

"He who cannot howl
will not find his pack."

{Charles Simic}