Morning Writing

At this point, I haven’t quite accepted the line that was drawn. I haven’t gotten used to the idea of “before the pandemic” and “after the pandemic” and maybe that is because we are still in the pandemic. I’m getting ready to go to the grocery store and I make my list diligently, but also with enough anxiety that I know I will forget something and regret it so much more than I would have before the pandemic.

Before the pandemic I could sit down to write and the only disruption would be that my thoughts moved too quickly for me to capture and tack down to the page. Now, I get rolling, my hands matching the voice in my head and then suddenly my 9 year begins speaking his thoughts out loud next to me at his distance learning desk and the roll that I was on, the wisdom I was about to capture, is gone – dissipating into the air like smoke from a camp fire. I can’t grasp them through the noise.

Elizabeth Gilbert says that ideas find us, that they have a life and a desire to be brought forth. I feel the spirit of the idea that found me - surrounding me, infiltrating my heart and mind. I feel the urgency as I tell myself that I don’t know what I’m doing – I don’t know how to write that story. That sentiment of not knowing is a line that has kept me in my place my whole life. I listen to it with the light stuff, but lately I can’t hold myself back. I know how to step right over and began trusting myself. I think it is time to remove the line all together – to accept that lines, walls, labels like before and after are just notions of understanding. They help us define and discuss and make sense, but writing isn’t about that in the moment. For me, writing is about forging my way through, trusting that sense will be made of it later. I cannot wait until after I know I can do it. I must do it now.  

FINDING YOUR VOICE #20

Free Writing - character voices

audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice20

“Goo-bye Mama, I wish I didn’t have to go,” her youngest whimpered as he wrapped his arms around her torso. He was short enough that she still hugged his head more that his body, but he was due for a growth spurt and she knew everything would change after that. “Oh honey, you’ll have so much fun with your cousins,” she assured him as she kissed the top of his head. 

 “Uuh bye,” grunted her oldest, as he whisked past her, no hug or even eye contact. Oh, how she wished she knew what was going on in his head, “See ya, bud. Have fun!” 

 “Bye Babe. Gotta go. Don’t want to be setting the tent up in the dark.” He gave her a quick hug and a kiss before adding, “Enjoy your alooone time” - drawing out that last bit enough to suggest he was either jealous or sad that she preferred to be alone over hanging out with him and his brother and their boys. “Thanks, Babe. I will. Have fun with the boys!” 

 She didn’t even walk them out to the van, since she had helped pack it and it was nearly 90 degrees out there. Instead she stood at the window and watched them pile in. They were ready to go and she was ready for them to go. It had been a month since school let out and this was the first 48-hour stretch on her own since. She waved as they pulled away from the house and suddenly everything felt more silent that it had just a moment earlier. She was alone.

FINDING YOUR VOICE #19

Free Writing

audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_19

As she exited the highway and followed the cloverleaf around 180 degrees to face North, she could see the storm they were trying to outrun. The sky was so much darker than she had realized and her heart dropped in a way that she hadn't felt in years. She opened her mouth and her throat made a wheezing sound, proof that her attempt to breathe was going to require a bit more consciousness. Moving her right hand up to her chest, she kept her left on the wheel to maintain control. Their speed had diminished as her entire body reacted, foot off the gas pedal. Hand on chest. She exhaled a WOW and then inhaled as the air rushed in. 

She thought she had gotten past this reaction to extreme weather. It wasn't nearly as bad as five years ago, standing in that field, watching the storm roll-in. She had literally seen the clouds as horses, front legs curled and furling again and again in her direction  - like the wraiths in Lord of The Rings burling down the river bed for Frodo. The adrenaline had filled her body, and she had felt frozen in that vast empty landscape. As the panic rose into her eyes, the anticipation of the storm had sucked all the air out of her lungs. Fearing for her life in that moment, she knew, was irrational and yet she felt it, unable to move. This feeling was the cherry on top of a cake filled with harrowing personal experiences - compounding on the tornado PTSD, on the straight line winds, on the mountain top lightening storm …. None of them had killed her, but they obviously still lived inside her and it was that panic attack that had been the last straw. After that she acknowledged that something was off in her body and she needed to figure it out. 

In comparison, she was able to manage herself today. She found a way to center and ground herself quickly this time - to see the rational ways everyone else moved about their lives despite the fast moving midwest monsoon. She felt more safe waiting it out in the presence of other adults, while her kids took their martial arts class, than sitting out the storm alone at home as the only adult in the house. Gratitude washed over her as she recognized progress.

FINDING YOUR VOICE #18

Free Writing

audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_18

The Great Aurora knew the power that lived inside her since she was a little girl. Her body was an imperfect container for this energy that had been passed to her. Others in her blood line had influenced it, but once it was hers it was up to her to wield it. Her mother and father raised her to fear her power. Recognizing its enormity, they dreaded it was something beyond her control, and even beyond theirs. They’d shown her how to carve out a place deep inside herself to hide it and she learned how to exist in a state of illusion - to appear special but not too special, to anticipate and affect others impressions of her, and to humbly divert attention away from the secret hiding inside her. As she practiced being what was expected, the truth within her was not nurtured. Aurora learned to override the most subtle instincts, and if she hadn’t inherited this specific power it all could have been fine. She could have stayed quiet and given an excellent performance, but it wasn’t to be. 

The secret within her was so powerful that at times it propelled the girl to want to shine beyond what was expected. Aurora was good at convincing others of her humility but they also sensed an aspect of her that was magnetic, different. As she grew older, she began to see herself as the illusion. She tried to fit in but yearned for deeper connection with others who could recognize her secret. She only needed one to be drawn into her orbit, to make her feel real. She desperately desired someone to see what she had hidden away, to hold a mirror up to show it to her. If only one could stay with her at the center of her storm and acknowledge the existence of the force she could not tamp down within her. Over the years, there were connections made, and they stuck to her nerves like dates on a timeline. Simply recalling the moments would ignite the warm connections as if they were happening again and again. In times of despair or solitude, she relied on them for hope. Eventually she realized that piecing those morsels together did not make a whole. It was futile to rely on others to show her the truest thing about her.

Aurora began to worry that time would run out. That her grown body would give out before she could come into her power. The tricks she learned when she was younger taught her to be safe, to listen to authority, to follow rules without understanding who set them and why. Moreover, she had learned to follow the rules even when she knew they were wrong. She had practiced hiding and diminishing her force instead of nurturing it. Her connection to the natural order of the world around her was so obvious and also unknown. For years Aurora worked to unlearn, to peel back the layers of protection inside herself, feeling around in the dark to remember where she had hidden her gem. A forest had grown inside her and there was no map to follow except her intuition. With each small step and each brave effort she went deeper into the forest of her history. Recognizing trees and stones and plants and seeing them anew. She knew she was on the right track when her body obliged. There was a way that flowed freely, that seemed easy, if she could find it. She would know she was on the right track when her body began to transform. 

Each of us has a pattern code built within us. As Aurora started to uncover hers, the power within her expanded. She didn’t have to wield it after all, she simply needed to let it grow until it filled every inch of skin so that she embodied it fully. As she emerged from the forest, she recognized the open tundra of her Nordic ancestors. Her feet felt at home in the snow - her arms outstretched, hands laying parallel with the wind - she closed her eyes to embrace the truth that existed here for her. Her mind carried her, floating and dancing above the winter plain. Her fire ignited her body until she felt bigger and wider and brighter than the snow. She filled the sky with color and light -- and continues to, into eternity - lighting the way for other young girls who find themselves lost in the woods.

FINDING YOUR VOICE #17

Free Writing
audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_17

The problem really was that she didn't know which instincts to trust. She'd more than proved her ability to decide, commit, and continue to show-up no matter what. Over the last two years she had found a way to make one piece of art every single day. She hadn't skipped, or stocked-up on pieces for later days. Instead, she'd gotten-up early or stayed up late in order to paint before the clock struck midnight. She'd packed-up supplies for road-trips, for camping in tents, for hotel rooms in New York, for family holidays, friend's houses, cafes, airports, and even other countries. She'd painted on days she forgot to take her vitamins.

She made room for this thing in ways she didn't make room for other things, in ways she hadn't succeeded with any other activity. This would never push her to her limit or burn-out her body. It was a nurturing process, a healing one, and she honestly couldn't imagine her life without it. It kept her open as an artist and fueled her other creative work. It kept her balanced when stress threatened to push her over the edge again. When she sat down to the page, she could show-up with all of the achievement signals firing, with an agenda that didn't belong there - and the process would neutralize it all. She didn't control the outcome, she simply controlled the fact that she would show-up. And, she showed-up.

Everyday for 827 consecutive days, she'd painted alone and around people. While the grill was smoking during summer bbq, she chatted with friends and worked on her piece.. While her husband lounged in the hammock and her kids biked around the campground, she filled that day's page. It wasn't lost on her that this too could look extreme, like other things she had overdone. She could see it through others' eyes, through the lens that it detracted from the flow of family life, affected her productivity in more serious things. But she had seen her brothers doing what they wanted, affecting the family flow her whole life. Did the group lose something by waiting for them to finish their bike ride? They had accommodated the men like men are used to being accommodated. How was this any different?

"You don't have to keep going, you know. You can stop if you want to." said her mother. That was true. She could stop, but she chose to continue until she understood more clearly why it was so damn necessary. On one hand, it was easy. Really. It was an easy practice to maintain because it brought so much joy and clarity to her view of the world. She could see the lessons playing out in colors and shapes and the process itself. Everything made sense in the context of her daily practice. It felt like the healthiest thing she'd ever started doing for herself. She was training her art-muscles like athletes train their physical-muscles. Going for a run, following a work-out regimen, eating a restricted diet were all widely accepted activities. Pushing her body too far in that realm had consequences that still affected her - beyond the body-image love-hate spiral she experienced every night before bed - she couldn't physically exert herself like she used to before her head started to pound. Her body told her what was too much now and this painting practice wasn't it.

That was the first signal she had read loud and clear from her body. Painting felt good and she couldn't ignore it. But, she also admitted considering the time involved and all the other things she could do with that time! It was a waste to spend time painting when she could be doing something that could make money.

"Bingo. There it is!"

That’s the instinct that didn't belong here anymore. It was part of a program that had been embedded in her. Productivity at all costs, a thin body is a healthy body, winning is everything … and pretending that you don't care about winning is simply being humble. But she knew as surely as the blood flowed through her veins that Pretending you don't care about __________ (fill in the blank) is not the same as not caring. Not caring about winning or achieving or what others thought required more than pretend. It was the perpetual double-narrative that was most harmful for her - the two-faces of society, of her country, or even of her relationship to junk food. The double-standard, the dueling stories became too hard to navigate. It made her feel like a little girl again, seeing the truth of the world for the first time, knowing the meaning of being on the fringe, thinking differently than the masses, and through it all she found a way to be hopeful.

Her painting practice provided that hope for her now. It was a commitment to herself, instead of the endless chasing of a false ideal. It wasn't extreme like the other things that had broken her. She wouldn't stop painting because it was the first real tangible hope she'd created for herself. New hope that was rooted in the core of her being and reached beyond the edges of her existence. It wasn't a burden, or a chore, or a thing for others - even if the sharing of it on her platform seemed that way at times. This practice, the process, was for HER and she was finally able to use it as an example for how to better approach other healthy things in her life. She was ready to forge ahead hoping one instinct would multiply into many.

FINDING YOUR VOICE #16

Free Writing

audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_16

The level of discomfort had reached a new high. The months and years of daily practice to find stillness suddenly felt like poetry set to heavy metal. Her mind flickered like a camera lens that couldn't find focus. She was all over the place. 

Paige had told her not to push the river, and she wasn't pushing - but damn if didn't feel like she was drowning. She was in the river, trying to be one with it, but her anxiety was increasing. She was so tense that her neck was rigid and her breathing was choppy. Powerful exhales were connected by short wispy inhales. She couldn't get enough air IN. 

She remembered breathing that way during her second labor - the home birth. Her breathing had been the single flaw in her overall redemptive performance. She'd labored on her own that morning, having told herself every day since her first labor five years prior, “no one is going to do it for me.” 

Her preparations had a foundation this time around. She'd quieted her brain beautifully over the course of six hours. Incrementally, she became silent within her body. She'd yielded her control and let her muscles do what they were made to do. All these years later, she could recall riding the contractions with her eyes closed, head resting on the birthing ball, hands and knees on the floor - rocking like a boat in a river. Her body had done the work and she'd simply had to get out of its way --  to ride the wave. 

That experience had healed her wounds, had fixed what she had broken. Coming full circle to 38 weeks of pregnancy had allowed her to forgive herself for everything she hadn’t known - for everything she couldn’t have known the first time. She had no idea what her body knew - that she had been present in her grandmother’s womb as an egg inside her own growing mother . She had no way of knowing this blood memory back then. But she knew it now, and her inability to inhale deeply seemed relevant somehow. Had she always had difficulty breathing-in the world around her? That symbolism hit her hard.  

Her body needed her to inhale, more deeply - to bring in the healing and let go of her fear and doubt. It had always seemed more productive to focus on breathing out - releasing all the issues and hang-ups to make room. She wondered now if she’d had it all backwards. 

Visualizing herself struggling in the river was starting to feel more like judgement, criticism. The big picture was narrated to her in the voice of “everyone” - the everyone whose opinion and praise she still worried about and needed. She was grasping at straws now, looking for some explanation to stay safely on the shore processing, instead of letting go and living it. 

She needed to be down there in the river, inside the discomfort. Riding the river like she had ridden her own waves of contractions, she was again between two states of reality. Who she used to be and who she would become was separated by this current. She needed to be willing to become the river. There was no shortcut, no easy way to travel this journey. More than anything, she knew there was no turning back now.

FINDING YOUR VOICE #15

Free writing

audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_15

Unlearning is a state all its own - a space in her mind and body that was unmarked, un-mapped. She felt in-between, void of position, overlooking her reality with a new perspective. Her proclivity to over-do everything or be lazy doing nothing was so much a part of her that she felt rebellious simply by the nature of the swing to one end or the other. Trying to win had broken her. Not trying to win still filled her with anxiety. Something about this moment of stillness helped her realize now that going to extremes wasn't a solution. Simply flipping things upside down didn’t change the currency, or frequency. Equal and opposite, they were the very same thing. 

Everything in her life had become still. She had faced a new year that was empty of achievement goals - that should have the first sign. Instead, she’d spent the first half of the year looking outward. Her attempts to fill her bucket, to distract her from facing the next level of truth, had been futile. Rejection was the term for it. On the spectrum of achievement, it was on the bad, shameful, disappointed end.  She saw it differently now, though. If she was honest with herself, she had almost expected the rejection. Always searching for the bigger pattern, she knew it was needed to force herself deeper. This was the time for stillness and those opportunities would only mold her efforts, not ignite them. 

In the stillness, she actively willed her body to reject the program. 

“Uninstall the app, woman! When you erase it all, there is nothing. Not one or the other. Just void. Silence. Clarity.” 

If looking for the old patterns meant seeing the new patterns in the same and opposite light, maybe it wasn't about being drastic. Maybe it was about simply moving forward with nothing to prove. Instead of pretending to not give a shit, she actually, truly needed to not give a shit. 

Her body crumbled inside of her skin at this thought. Her cells wept. This was terrifying. 

It meant putting her feet to the fire and choosing for herself with no regard to anyone else, if that is what she didn’t know. It meant listening to her heart, allowing desire to rise-up, using her skills with a new purpose, to live her way. It meant learning her way. Not conforming or protesting. Not forcing or bending. Not reflecting or projecting. It meant being herself. Daring to be. 

FINDING YOUR VOICE #14

Free Writing

Audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_14

Twenty years. TWENTY years! Somewhere inside her brain she still felt twenty years old herself, not old enough to have been married that long. The moment pause felt like cracking open the human brain, cycling through complex thoughts at the speed of light. "Are you just going to ignore me?" he asked. "I asked you a question." She realized her mouth had been stuck open but nothing had come out. He was getting irritated, triggered by a pattern behavior. It occurred to her that these patterns may have existed even before them, but it simply didn't serve her in this moment. His answers always came easy, one word. Hers were tied to a winding string that never seemed to find its end. She didn't want to answer wrong and be held to it.

"How do our brains do that?" she wondered to herself. How are we able to gather all of the lived memory and synthesize it into one thing, one feeling, one answer? Looking at their list of accomplishments, they'd done well enough. Their children were still alive, too, so that was worth something. But there were still issues. She supposed everyone had issues, every relationship does. The longer she stuck in her groove, the easier life passed by and she knew that wasn't a good thing. It was like ignoring the elephant balancing on her shoulders just because she could still move about and complete the necessary functions. He didn't understand her words anymore, if they came out of her mouth. She could feel them distorting in mid-air. It didn't matter if she tried to explain, it actually made it worse. She could see every inch of his skin harden, he'd hold his breath, and then he might as well have turned red. She couldn't get through to him anymore, so she navigated him like unexploded-bombs in the rice paddies of his country. How could he expect her to want to be intimate if he ignited her defenses the other 99% of the time?

Intimacy for her was about feeling connected in mind and mission ... and then body. She wanted that kind of sensation. She wanted to feel seen - and revered. Resentment was the language now, for what she did and what she didn't do. Who wants to be fucked by resentment?

Twenty years was feeling more like an work anniversary than the mark of a journey together. They had married quickly. Not a shot-gun wedding, more like a mutual understanding of what it means to dive into life together. There were so many ways of seeing that synced between them, even some of the weird, extreme views. They would circle a situation from different sides and ultimately end-up at the same spot, off center. They clashed in their synchronicity until they created a breath-taking stillness. At their best, they were the soundest core foundation, no decorations - no frills. At their worst they were a mess of electrons whizzing around the nucleus, missing each other, separating further to the edge of explosion.