Asleep in my arms

Into the West

Lay down your sweet and weary head
Night is falling, you have come to journey's end.
Sleep now, and dream of the ones who came before.
They are calling from across the distant shore.

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
all of your fears will pass away,
safe in my arms
you're only sleeping.

What can you see on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea a pale moon rises—
The ships have come to carry you home.

Dawn will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass.

Hope fades
into the world of night
through shadows falling
out of memory and time.

Don't say, "We have come now to the end."
White shores are calling
you and I will meet again.
And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.

What can can you see on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea a pale moon rises—
The ships have come to carry you home.

And all will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the west.

Good bye, old friend.

Waiting for a ship

The May spring water pulsed over my bare feet, and I curled my toes against the cold. I knew it wasn’t ocean water; it was Lake Michigan water; that didn’t sound as poetic. A half hour ago on this beach in Door County, Wisconsin, my friend and I had stood on the broken shells and looked out at the breathing mist.

Clouds as low as the lake. “Did you ever pretend, when you were a little girl on the beach,” I closed my eyes, “that if you looked long enough at the ocean—at the horizon—were careful not to blink—and just knew, and waited—a ship would come for you?”

My friend has mounted the hill to the house, but I am still in the sand and dawn. Down the beach a clatter of rocks migrates toward the wet horizon, and a seagull preens. When I reach it, my bare feet find their place in the water-washed stone: islands.

“When I am alone on the beach,” my friend told me, “I turn into the wind, turn into the water, and sing.”

But the sea is wide and I cannot swim over 
Neither have I the wings to fly… 
But I'll spend my days in endless roaming, 
Soft is the grass, my bed is free...
On that long road down to the sea. 

If a ship were ever to come for me, it would be now, on the water, in the morning, and perhaps while I sing.

The invisible girl

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place. 

~Author Unknown 

“You’re an incredibly intimidating person!”

I looked at him, dumbfounded. I’m intimidating? I walk out of the yellow-walled classroom with a friend—protesting that I try to be pleasant—and my friend bobs his head emphatically, insisting, oh yes, I am a terribly nice person. But maybe rather intimidating.

And I heard it again from a professor walking out on the sidewalk in the April sun, and again from a former roommate when reminiscing about our first meeting: I have it under control. I get things done. I’m on top of everything. Good for me.

What those people do not know is my inability to let myself even timidly approach anything close to weakness is itself one of my greatest weaknesses. The struggle for authenticity, transparency, and vulnerability fights bitterly against the deadly safe walls of a “perfect” exterior—and a false self. It is easier to be perfect than to be vulnerable, to give others the chance of hurting you, laughing at you. It is easier to be perfect than to let others down and cause them pain and risk them leaving you for your clumsy life.

Not allowing myself to be weak—to not be perfect—has affected me as a woman. I know I was not the only little girl to dream of being the great beauty rescued by the prince—I always secretly wanted to be dramatically kidnapped and  even more dramatically rescued (complete with epic battles and castles, swords, and dragons, preferably).

But as soon as I started dreaming up those adventures, I’d bite my lip and anxiously push back those stories, because, I knew, if I were silly enough or pathetic enough or dumb enough to get kidnapped and in trouble in the first place,  the prince would surely be annoyed he had to come rescue me—he’d think less of me—“Hell,” he’d gripe, “what an idiot, she got herself into a hell of a mess”—and I’d have only shame where I wanted love.

If only I’d been smarter, braver, or better, I could’ve earned the his love, I could’ve avoided getting in trouble in the first place or at least could have gotten myself out of it on my own and proven my worth. Ultimately, I would be rescued only because I had failed.

You are not enough, the world tells me, If you show your weakness, others will leave you. We are afraid of being the girl, who, when she finally summons up the courage to show her weakness, finds herself abandoned by her prince and by others at the very moment she needed their strength. It is in that moment she learns she was just not quite worth fighting for.