beside me is an empty banana peel, a half eaten bar of raw chocolate, a few pens, and lists.   sometimes i think these lists are waking me up at night wanting to talk shop. you know, like: “when the fuck are you going to paint the front porch and oh my god your basement and hallway closet are in appalling condition and…”  i’m sure you know the drill.  you have your own lists.  and i’m sure they must talk to you in their own way.

i have been waking consistently at three or four in the morning for months now.  maybe years…i’m losing track of time.  last night it was just shy of two am.  i like the idea of blaming the moon.  it is so full and round and bright and shines right onto my pillow case.  right onto my sweet face.  i wake and i can’t fall easily back to sleep. sometimes i can’t fall back to sleep at all.

maybe it is the unwritten (unspoken) that is waking me up.  calling to me.  crying.

be, my plant spirit medicine practitioner, wonders if it is my grief.  i am working through a lot of grief these days.  these years.  like a baby, she postulates, my grief wakes me in the middle of the night and wants to be soothed.  but i do not know how to sooth her. in the middle of the night i do not even realize that she/me is sad or crying.  i have asked the linden tree that lives just outside my bedroom window for help.  this might sound crazy to you.  but i do beseech the trees.  and this last week i have also been beseeching my ancestors.  so far i haven’t understood the answers.

yesterday (or was it the day before) i broke down crying in the grocery store.  a sweet friend i hadn’t seen in a while asked me how i was doing.  i told her lots of things.  i gave her a list really.  i said this.  and this.  and this.  i was tired.  and so i also said this. and this and this. then she pointed to my heart.  and told me it was broken.  that all my stories over the years were telling her the same thing.  my sweet heart.  i cried and cried and cried.  right there in the grocery store near the chocolate isle.

maybe i can’t blame the moon.  or the unpainted porch.  or my ex-husband for leaving me.

or maybe i can.

but i’m not going to stop there.  i am going to ask for more help.

what i would like is for my grandmothers and my grandfathers to find some thread.  i would like my great great grandmothers and great great great grandfathers to find a needle.  aunts and uncles can join in too.  i can see all their fingers.  some thick and dirty from their work in the garden. some a little stiff.  i would like them to help me now. together they can work their magic. and begin to stitch, in their otherwordly time,  this heart of mine.  this heart of ours.  maybe they’ll do it while i sleep.  or maybe as i stir and wrestle with the edges of my grief.

because this heart of mine beats on in my daughters.   i would like them to see their mother’s heart whole.  most of their life they have known their mother to have a broken heart.  even if this has remained unspoken.  i long for deep restful sleep and that my heart is free and full and light.

heart is what this whole blog has always been about.  all these years.  moving from my heart!  broken or not.

a few months ago my daughters, now both with ipads, began reading my blog.  it was really wild and weird for me.  they noted that i prayed in my blog posts.  that was weird for them because they don’t see me as spiritual or religious in “real” life.  i am not christian.  or a buddhist.  but i do pray.  and i am spiritual.  they also pointed out things they thought were funny.  and they both enjoyed seeing themselves depicted in my words and images.  and they wanted more!

this post is an acknowledgment of deep hurt that sometimes stays for a long time.  and this post is also a prayer to the trees and to my ancestors that i may continue to heal in just the perfect ways.  for myself, for my children, and all of us.

because a broken heart can still have a tan and wear sunglasses!!!!