stoop

Sometimes/all of the time I wish I had a stoop I could hang out on with a bunch of ragamuffin friends. We'd tell each other jokes and just shoot the shit for an entire afternoon. Sometimes/all of the time I wish I lived somewhere where I had a butcher I talked to daily. The dry cleaners would be next to the butcher shop and I'd bring the lady who runs the dry cleaners flowers every Thursday just to make her happy. Sometimes/all of the time I wish I lived in a late 1960s Brooklyn seen through the distorting lenses of nostalgia.

I never want to be somewhere where I was these past few months. I fell apart. The falling apart part distressed me, but not nearly as much as the not-giving-a-shit-that-things-were-going-to-shit part that scared me. Well, it didn't scare me at the time -- which should have scared me even more. Apathy is a gun, but at least one is too tired to be tempted by the trigger. At least I hope so.

And now I have hope. I know Pema Chodron famously wrote, "Abandon hope." I get what she means. At least I think I get what she means. I never want to assume I know it all. But what I mean when I say hope is that I now want to continue. I now look forward to the smell of campfire, to intimate moments with tangible people, to the moment when I split open an apricot and anticipate the taste on my tongue, to the sound of the lone raven's wings as it flies over a canyon at dusk, to the overpriced dark chocolate which melts slowly on my tongue... Hmmm. Guess I've developed a recent obsession with my tongue. And maybe YOUR tongue as well? Guess I've developed into a creep! But at least -- AT LEAST -- I am a hopeful creep.

This hopeful, renewed version of Meg just kinda creeped up on me. I usually do not handle surprised all too well, but this surprise is welcomed. I embrace the side of me that is sloppy, messy, wild, wandering. I embrace the peace that comes with letting moments come to me. I don't have to run away from the nice, quiet things in life anymore. I simply don't have to. I don't have to be a rat in a maze or a dog in a cage. There are so many ways for me to break free. And then I can just be. I don't have to run.

I can be that raven, I can be that apricot, I can be that intimate with myself.

So I have hope. I will wear it inside of the locket around my neck. I will abandon what destroys me. I will find some fun things to put on my tongue (WELL, I WILL!!!). I will still, secretly, dream of the afternoons spent on the stoop. Just try and stop me.