In the far, far places where

mermaids sing and fishes cry for their mothers

there are no sounds

only the soft slapping of waves

Your heart stills and your breath sighs raggedly

but your feet keep moving, moving

pushing your warm soft pliant body of

stitched-together skin stretched over tangled red-blue pulsing cords

and hard-breathing whitened bone

to find the spot where sky meets earth

You sit and wait

for a sign, a sob, a sweetness

but the roar inside silently deafens

and drowns your fears and ambitions,

grinding past-present-future into a bright purple Now

In the far, far places where

mothers sing softly and ancient stones weep

there are no songs and no stones

except in the stillness of memory

and creation of what-comes-next

This is your time.

This is your time and this driving, harsh road is yours — your child.

This road is your child

and its songs are the songs we sing when we are born and when we die.

This is your time, yours and yours alone and

on this road you walk unencumbered, alight, aloft

until one day wings sprout from aching shoulders and

weary feet rest in cool waters

and you breathe softness and splendor once again

I hate myself.

I tried to wipe me away by changing my name two years ago, but like a bad penny and a lost puppy, I came back. And all I can do now is imagine I’m jabbing an ice pick into the side of my now-irradiated head because the pain of being me is unforgivable.

Please make it go away. The pain. I would do anything not to feel this anymore.

I shouldn’t be here. I can’t be here anymore. There is no place for me and the pain of being me is unbearable. But everywhere I go, there I am, way less of me now than a few months ago, to be sure, but I’m still here and there are no icepicks to save me from drowning in a sea of me.

Last week one of the people I love most in the world came to visit. And that was right about the time that TB (Total Bitch) showed up. All her fears and anxieties and need to control came out while this awesome person was visiting. I hate that. I hate that my son, this amazing young man, saw me being a bitch, saw me in my fears, saw me struggling to walk across the room because my body is so weak, saw me fighting with the man I adore, saw me doing anything but being the perfect goddess woman I advertised I was going to become.

I was a bitch and I am ashamed. I let my old patterns emerge, the ones I thought I successfully shone enough light on to banish forever, or make my ally, or something other than being totally hogtied by them. But no. I have no idea who that woman was who was in my body last week, but I know I used to be her. Still am her. And it did not feel good. Does not.

I wonder if the bitch came out to show me something. How scared I am, maybe. How far from what I know I have allowed myself to become. How detached I am from my sources of power and wisdom.

Someone reminded me recently that I should think about honoring the woman once called Karen Murphy, one of my former names. I have been thinking about that. I so wanted to leave her behind. Becoming Talyaa was supposed to be becoming my true self. Karen was prevented for years from being her true self. But I have not remembered that Talyaa stands on Karen’s shoulders. I wanted to kill Karen. I was so done being Karen. I wanted to leave her behind forever. And I guess I have been doing a good job of it. Maybe in her is the key to truly becoming Talyaa. Maybe I need to get to know Karen again, ask her what she wants, ask her what she knows.

So, the lover thing. I ask myself: what do I love? I know a lot of things I love. I am not doing enough of them. 18 days have gone by since I learned about this cancer thing and came home from the hospital. And if I only get 9 months (at best) and have already used up EIGHTEEN FRICKING DAYS, what the hell do I think I am doing? Why am I not yawping and carpe diem-ing all over the fucking city, for Christ’s sake? Who the hell designed this fucked up life, anyway?

Oh. Me. Right.

Akua = spirit, goddess.

Kahuna = wise man or shaman.

I think we are still claiming the full power of our names. But I look at my soulmate and I see Kahuna, even if he does not see it fully himself.

This is what happened. I got cancer. I thought it healed. It didn’t and came back. Far, far worse. Terminal. And my soulmate, my Kahuna, has determined to make this his grand story. I am his grand story, he says. He has been looking for one, wanting a grand story in his life, and here it is. Kahuna is loving me into life.

I was convinced from the get go that there was destiny afoot between me and my Kahuna. I heard things. Felt things. I knew within days after we met that I loved him, even though it made no sense at all. I knew within weeks that we would live together within a few months, even though it was so soon, so early. I knew within months that soulmates are the real deal, because here was mine.

And here I am, being loved more than I ever thought possible. He is a good man, my Kahuna. He is trying so hard to be even better. This is real. We are living our story.

The thing about stories is that you can invent endless endings for them. I don’t yet know how ours will end but I know we are far, far from any ending. I plan to love my man for a very long time.

Me: Hi Dad, the doctors say I have less than a year to live.

Dad: I don’t know what to say so I’m sending you a card that says it.

It isn’t very downstream of me to dwell on this stuff, but really? A fucking CARD? Way to phone it in.

Hi, I’m Talyaa and I have Stage 4 cancer that’s not treatable by western medicine. Yay. Yes, this will change my life (ba dum BUM).  I am writing about it here. And my beloved soulmate is writing about it here. Follow me. Write to me. Hire me. This is your story too. It’s about loving and living.

Apparently I sometimes like to be exuberant with water. I notice this most when doing the dishes (he is The Chef and I am The Dishwasher, an arrangement that pleases me greatly) and I come away from the sink with the front of my shirt all wet.

I didn’t used to be that way.

Once I lived with a man who was horribly splashy. In hotels, I’d dive into the bathroom first and shower, neatly toweling off before stepping on the bathmat, so I could avoid the Tsunami Aftermath of that man’s showers. I hate stepping on wet floors in socks.

Another man was horribly splashy, but with food. “Look at me!” he’d yell while chopping, “I’m the Swedish Chef!”

“Not when it’s my house,” I’d grumble, knowing I’d be the one to clean up the ankle-deep carrot clippings, onion snarls, and ginger shards.

I hated splashy.

Splashy, to me, meant disrespect. Disrespect for my sock-clad feet. Disrespect for my shinyclean kitchen. Disrespect for my desire for order and neatness and things arrayed neatly in jars on shelves.

You would think, then, that why I married Mr. Splashy is a mystery.

I can tell you why it is not.

For one thing? Soulmate.We should all be so lucky as to make house and life with our soulmate, our most kindred spirit. Mr. Splashy knows my love of play. He evokes it, coaxes it, helps it feel safe. What’s a little water when your persona is married to its soulmate persona? More splashing for everyone!

Another thing? Well, respect. If Mr. Splashy had any inkling that I hated splashing, well, not only would there be no Mr. & Mrs., but we would have pristine countertops free from splashes of any kind. If I really wanted it that way, he would do it. For me, because he loves me.

But it is way more fun to embrace my inner 5 year old and join my man in his world. That way, I honor us both.

* We are not actually married. Mr. & Mrs. Splashy are. I think soulmate would like me to point this out, maybe in all caps WE ARE NOT ACTUALLY MARRIED THANK YOU.

But I love love love that Mr. & Mrs. Splashy are married.

There is this situation. It is pretty dire, the down-to-the-wire kind of thing that has major consequences unless some big changes are made and made fast. I wish I could say more but I’m not willing to. (hint: it’s financial)

The problem is my soulmate. He is not the problem. The problem is me. I am not the problem. The problem is that putting attention on fixing the dire situation has meant some radical shifts between us. It’s those shifts that have me feeling so sad and angry and scared.

What do you do when the person you love most in the world pushes you away in all the ways that trigger all your stuff, because his own stuff is triggered from years of not-dealing with the dire situation? He thinks I judge him, so he pushes me away. I feel angry and scared about being pushed away, and judge him for the way he pushes me away (I am not good with angry yelling, and as soulmate says I’d probably wither and die in an Italian family, whereas he’s clearly very Mediterranean slash what they call Black Irish, a formidable combination when it comes to angry yelling compared to the quiet passive-aggression of my Puritanic-Teutonic Celtic-Saxon heritage). More pushing, more judging.

In my world, Angry Yelling + Pushing Away = Not Loving.

I am scared this wonderful thing in my life is falling apart and I don’t know how to fix it.

I think that in his world, Judging = Not Loving.

I think we are both scared of very much the same thing.

I am angry at myself for needing things like eye contact and gentle words and touches to know I am loved. What is wrong with me that I can’t trust that love is there when he is afraid and angry and I am the only person around for him to show it to?

I love this man. I’ve been seeing my life with him, my whole life.

Now my fears are so engaged that I think he will just leave when he can, that he is biding his time, or that now I am finally seeing the real man, the angry bitter one that hid inside the amazing brilliant loving one, and I am afraid I have made a bed I must lie in. I will be abandoned or must suffer, one or the other. And I am angry that I feel powerless to do anything about it.

Something inside me — is it my heart? — tells me to wait it out, be patient, be a woman (whatever that means), and just love the fuck out of this man. He is so good for me, I cannot tell you how good he is for me, not the eat-your-liver-it’s-good-for-you kind of good for you, but more like the everything-you-ever-dreamed-of-and-more good for you. If I had a hat I would hang it on that.

Somewhere I will find the strength to be the woman who loves him. To navigate these dark waters with him. To reach — together — the shores on the other side.

Like, when the person you love is hurting and shuts you out of that hurt because it’s the same old song, really — what should you do?

And, when he holds your hand and suddenly you are 13 again and you don’t know what it means — what should you do?

Or, when you are sad and afraid and feeling alone and are faced with demons you welcomed 40 years ago — what should you do?

If I had a manual, I would keep it safe. I would pet it. I think I would tell people about it. But, you know, people don’t really want your answers. They want to find their own way. That’s okay, isn’t it? Everyone is in their own separate bubble world, hundreds of thousands and billions of bubbles gently bumping up against other bubbles, and no one knowing what to do or what to say, but the bubbles muffle the sound slightly so you always feel like you are just talking to yourself, just sending words out into the atmosphere, mute mouths moving and no one ever hearing.

I feel like that sometimes.

A manual would tell me what to do when I feel like that.

A manual would also tell me what to do when I remember that I am scared to leave the house, scared to go out and touch my bubble to the bubbles that belong to other people, scared to make a mistake, scared to not make a mistake, scared I will always be in this house, scared I won’t remember the way home. A manual would tell me that.

A manual would tell me what to say so no one ever doesn’t like what I say. I would always know the perfect thing. I would always be smiling, at least in my mind, and the air would always have that pink-gold tinge it gets just before sunset in the summer.

A manual would tell me what I should remember: things like I always have magic inside me, or that I am way more powerful than I think, or that no one really means to hurt me, or that life isn’t as scary as I think it is in my mind.

A manual would tell me where my mind stops and where the world begins.

They really should give out manuals. I wonder if I lost mine.

I can see everything from up here.

You would think that three inches doesn’t make much of a difference, but you’re wrong. It makes all the difference.

It starts with corn. Ever been in a cornfield? I always thought the ears were up high, higher than my head, but no. It’s the tassels that are high. The ears grow along the stalk, like cocoons stuck to a pole.

Corn always reminded me of teeth.

But it’s the tassels I am thinking about now. Being up high like this, I can see them for what they are. They’re sex! Come here, they say. Come and get me! I have no idea how corn plants go from tassels to ears, but there you go.

Up here everything is quiet.

When I feel taller, I know I can do anything. Be anyone. Today I am Marie Curie. Was she tall, like me? I could Google her, but instead I’ll go on. I am pretty sure that no one has been curious enough about her height (and weight, if you must know), to insert that information on her Wikipedia page. The people who wrote that were probably more interested in chemistry, or maybe just sex. Did Marie Curie get it on in the laboratory?

Say that out loud once. Lab-OR-a-tory. Now say it with a Peter Lorre accent. Good.

Up here, it smells different too.

You would think: cleaner, fresher, purer. Right? But no. Up high is where the “bad air” goes. You have to get low and crouch if you want to crawl through a burning building, for example, and not die from inhaling too much smoke. Get low! Crawl! Crawl or die!

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to stand up here on tiptoe, thinking I’ll die if I throw my chest out (hi, breasts!) and my head back. It’s hard to not be invisible.

It’s lonely up here.

~~~

This is part of a 30-day foray into the art of ekphrasis, or writing from art. What you read today was 10 minutes of unedited writing from the tiptoe’d feet image you see. Each day I will choose a new image and write for 10 minutes using the image as a starting place. I call the category Phantasm, which according to my dictionary is a figment of the imagination; an illusion or apparition, or archaic, an illusory likeness of something. 

It’s hard to remember exactly how it felt a year ago, light-years now, because now is now. Today we sat with laptops, an entire room stretching between us. I wanted to touch him, feel his breath on my neck, taste his mouth. Instead, I looked at him. I looked love into him, as much as I could. He lets me love him this way, lets me love him with as much of me as I can.

This is what love is supposed to be.

I look at him and everything swells up inside, wanting to burst forth. I am overcome. Overjoyed. Abundantly blessed. No one has ever let me love them this much, has ever loved me this much. And every day there is more.

Yesterday in the car I looked over at him. We were leaving Trader Joe’s and headed for Lowe’s. Mundane shopping in mundane suburbia, a bridge and a lake away from our house on a tall city hill. I looked over at him driving and saw our future, all the way to the end. The future where I love him the rest of my life.  I saw it and felt it and knew it, as real as the day a few weeks after we met when I knew we’d be one day living together in Seattle.

And every day there is more.