construction

Life is too short for me to waste it on the superficial.

I want to become intimate with the natural world. I never want to be boxed in or trapped in my own neuroses and selfishness. I want to experience the land and the soil, the skin of the earth and the birds perched beyond reach. I want to know the beasts and the insects' wings. I want to fly without leaving the ground. The eyes can soar with the right perspective.

May the red sand and limestone purify my soul. And it will, and it will.

I have been stuck for far too long. Maybe this limbo period is preparing me for what's next. Maybe everything in me needed to hibernate in preparation for some "great awakening." Lord, let's hope so.

I have confidence in the Universe, but I also must do my own part. It begins with me being fearless and leaping and trusting and all of those other cliche, self-helpy words. But it's true!

Fear fear fear and doubt doubt doubt have stopped me my whole life from doing anything and everything that I have wanted. It seems as though I have 100% of the time chosen the safe, practical way. The way that won't rock any kind of boat on any body of water. I don't even get close to the water, you know? And it achieves nothing except for a boatload of regret.

So I guess I do sometimes love the superficial. I love the REI, the Subarus, the flannel. I love the big dogs and organic gardens and smell of summer skin. I love the freckles and the meals over camping stoves. I love the wildflowers that tattoo the desert floor.

I want time to name the mountains (but the names will remain sacred, a secret kept between me and the rocks). I want to sleep, again, on a sand dune in June. I want to read the canyons like a book, but from bottom to top, not left to right. I want to be left to write about what's left of what's right.

And what's right to me is the crooked trunk of the juniper tree. The sand that sinks into the wrinkles of my knees as I kneel to pray to the spider web that just trapped the fly. The silk that weaves seamlessly through this moment and through this lifetime. Let it not be ignored or hidden by various screens and distractions.

The strands can shine in the sun brilliantly once we remove the clouds.

ready

I am ready to start living a boring life.

To paraphrase both the book by Chuck Klosterman and the song by Black Sabbath, I've been killing myself to live. I don't know if it has been out of ignorance, self-loathing, or denial, but whatever it is kinda sorta totally has to stop. But where do I start?

I have to be vague on this blog. I don't want to cause worry in the hearts of some of you tenderhearted readers. I should start a secret blog! Should I start a secret blog? Have I already? Guess I could just go old school and write in a diary. Like, an actual, physical diary with pages and a lock and I'll hide the key inside of my womb. I mean, my room. Under my uterus. I mean, under my mattress.

But okay, anyway, where do I start? I start by giving up certain substances, or at least putting them on pause, and taking up other substances, such as multivitamins that don't turn my pee neon yellow. I start by being honest with myself and others and refusing to apologize for the honesty. I start by slowing down my day-to-day, which I hope will trickle into my life. I am meant for a slow life, one where I can wear overalls and chew on wheat and tell travelers that this here town don't care too much for city folk. I want a dog, too. Just a dog and a yurt and some books and overalls with a 3-button flap on the rear so I don't have to unbuckle the suckers every single time I need to do what girls NEVER do... But I'm no girl! I'm a lady! A lady with a butt flap and a hankerin' for some desert sunsets from the comfort of my back porch. Yurts have porches, right?

So maybe one day I'll stumble upon the root cause of my boo hoos. It's probably fairly important that I do. I don't want to stumble into my hippie dippie life with a bunch of demons tied to my back. I've been stumbling for years now and am ready to shake my feet awake. I have paths to walk, crooked as they may be, and I could use all the arch support I can get. Speaking of arches, I'm placing my yurt directly underneath a red arch. Come find me if you want.

brick

The worst illness is being sick for a home you've never had. Okay, it's not the worst. There are at least 14,776 worse illnesses out there, but homesickness is at least in the top one thousand.

So I've got the whole homesickness thing going for me. I also have the whole writer's block shtick. According to someone somewhere who I trust, having writer's block just means you are lazy. Fine, so maybe I am lazy. What's it to ya, Person I Trust? I might be lazy and I might be a fake, but I will never be a blockhead. Never say never -- my brain lately seems to be nothing but a failed Tetris game. Nothing fits quite right and it's Game Over.

I could write about my dreams of being on Broadway? No. No, because I don't dream that. I wouldn't be writing the truth. I dream more of being an Off-Broadway star. And I don't even have to be the star all of the time. Being a participant would suit me just fine. I kind of dream of being an Off-Broadway participant. But even then, that's not my truth.

Still searching. Searching for a home and a truth and suspicious that they might be the same thing.

Can I live inside of a truth? Can I have a breakfast nook and a dinner party and a welcome mat at the front door of a truth? I have a sinking feeling that truth doesn't use front doors. Truth breaks through windows with bricks. Truth might be the brick.

There are at least 14,776 worse illnesses. There are at least 14,775 unlocked doors. Find the key for the one that's locked.

the great disappointer

What if I make my posts a mash-up of my funny, neurotic side and my floofy, sensual side? That way all bases are covered and all readers are pleased and GOSHDAMMIT, MEG! Enough with the people pleasing!

Actually, I've begun to please people a lot less as I've gotten older. I pretty much just disappoint them now. Meg Wiemer: People Disappointer. Disappointer? But I hardly know her! Anyway, with age comes confidence and also a huge lack of confidence due to a slowing metabolism and wrinkles and gray hairs. Screw it. I want the curves and the character and the crone-like mane. Give me all of those things plus confidence and I shall ride into my golden years on the back of a unicorn, which just so happens to be Scotland's official animal. No, really. It is.

And now for something floofy and sensual: I come to you with my hand, not my head.

Okay, back to my neuroticism. I start so many books, but I never ever ever finish them... UNTIL NOW. I have been knocking books outta the park, left and right and sideways and in some cases straight up into heaven. I've been knocking books into heaven! Hope you enjoy those books I'm tossing to you, Shirley Temple. Too soon? My genre of choice these days is Brit lit. Who knew? I always thought I despised those proper gentlemen and ladies. Not so! I love them so much that I am holding out hope that one day Stephen Hawking or Bill Nye or the Pope will build a time machine so I can travel back to the 19th century and find myself trapped in a loveless marriage. And I'll be wearing a bonnet!

I never quite know what to say at the end of posts, so instead of saying anything, I'll let Ms. Adrienne Rich do the talking.

"You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it."

It does, babe. It does.

rome

Paraphrasing the ancients, I'd rather be first in a small pond than second in the ocean. Maybe I'm not paraphrasing them. Maybe I missed the point. Maybe I can't swim. I can't. Maybe I'll always come in last in any body of water into which I dive. At least I tried to float. (Turns out holding your breath doesn't help.)

Oh well. So I missed my chance at expanding myself into the largest empire. I can take pride in the fact that I am an expert in the field of shrinking and disappearing, though. I guess I should say that I could take pride, but it won't fit into my backpack. Pride always takes up too much space and right now I'm trying to live inside the negative.

And inside my negative existence, I still roll the names Romulus and Remus off my tongue. Romulus. Remus. Sharing the womb, you were conceived by force from a planet we are on the verge of understanding. The verge is only a cliff and the cliff has guardrails. I'm only going to peer down, despite the desire to fall. You will always be just a lonely dot in a sky I can't define or see.

If I can't swim, then at least let me be an island. Let me be a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. Let me be a shore you won't desert. I will burn your ships to prevent you from leaving. Let me fix you another cup of coffee so you will linger a minute longer, bathed in the morning light that leaks through the closed blinds.

So I close my eyes, plug my nose, and dive. I shatter what was seconds before a still mirror. I sink into a space neither large or small. I touch the floor and begin to explore the ruins. I wait for you to paraphrase my remains. I remain.

lilith

I found myself last night falling in love with a screech owl. She is the first wife, the one who dared to be parallel. How can you find balance if your rib belongs to another? But the cage is your own. Claim your cage. I approach you Eve, over and over, but you turn away. Lilith. Lilith listens.

All her princes are gone, her castles shall be overgrown with thorns, she shall become a haunt for ostriches. Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest.

Let me rest with you amidst the thorns and beasts. Let me comb the ravens out of your hair and build ourselves a nest out of our past, out of our discarded tribes and movie ticket stubs. Let me listen to the echo of the hollow rib cage. Let me lie down with you and the moon and sink into a scripture both lost and forgotten. Let us rewrite what was and create what will come. Let us come to our refuge with open, not folded, arms.

I fell fast in love last night with the hags and creatures that stumble their way so humbly through their human existence. I fell when they fell; I will rise when they rise.

fives

my five favorite things in order

books
nature
food
art
walks

my five least favorite things in order

cleaning out hair in the shower drain
everything and anyone associate with the tea party
crafty moms
styrofoam takeout containers
nazis

second

Second chances are found after trying something for the 8th or maybe 48th time. Second chances are not sequential. Second chances are grains of sand, seconds passing by in an hourglass. Second chances are missed or not taken or taken and then later either regretted or blessed or discarded and forgotten. In other words, everything we ever do is always a giant question mark and we have nothing left to do but throw our hands up in the air and declare any cause a lost one.

Don't call me a pessimist, though. Don't get me wrong. In fact, I find nothing but hope in the fact that we are doomed to an uncertainty. I find nothing but motivation to continue when I realize I will never have to choose between what was and what will be. What doesn't exist cannot be chosen. I'm left with what is, which is what is preferred. I use "we" too much, perhaps, but in the end I'm only speaking of (and to) me.

So go ahead and make a list. Write down all the failed loves you've tried. Write down the times you cried without tears and the times you spoke without words. Don't search for a reason. Don't dissect or digest or distinguish. It is enough for you to catch it with a hook. What emerges will immediately want to dive back into the water. Keep it out. Keep it out, lying there on the page, gasping for breath. You owe this to yourself.

I may be a question mark and I may never find that non-sequential second chance. But life isn't logical. Life will happen when we are busy picking out the bait. Nobody will wait for you to come alive, not even yourself.

things that make me

things that make me feel okay

the word "ahoy"
running shoes with superb arch support
ethanol, temporarily
susan sontag reassuring me that "obsessive people make great art."
looking back at where i was 5 years ago and seeing where i am today
other people who hate mommy blogs as much as i do
reverting back to shunning capitalization

things that make me feel funny inside (both good funny and bad funny, but I shall not distinguish which is which)

russia
boys with names that begin with either the letter j, d, and sometimes c
the c word
the l word
art
tarantula eyes
ethanol, momentarily
girl, interrupted
odd numbers
kraftwerk

things that make me feel bad

ending blog posts on a downer
endings in general
giving the indians syphilis
ethanol, eventually
gossip magazines
numbers on exercise machines
machines

“The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both.”
― Susan Sontag