This is the way to thread me

This is the way you
thread me while I'm in motion:
eye the eye of my needle and
will it to stop spinning
swirling passing by in a blur

Sing to it, if you will:
Slow down, my love! Slow
down! Watch me carefully
consider with perceivable pause
I slow I stir I where have you gone?

This is how I sleep: when
thread is slack and held by
nothing but gravity's pull
against the gleaming wooden
floor. Thread me! I whisper

to fingertips long resting. At
once I tire. I stop to admire
the all of me slender long
a curved space through which
I can view the rest of you.

Where is your thread now?
Look, I am still. I contemplate
the thrill of colors brightly chosen
looped through my lair and
pulling me guiding me trusting

my sharp point to meet the
rough pad of a waiting fingertip
when I emerge from the other
side. One cannot begin to imagine
the beauty of tapestries I've made.

A Message To Loss As I Enter The Next Chapter

Dear Loss,

There are some things
I need to say to you as
I embark on life's next
big shift. Listen well.

I am not afraid of you.
I am not afraid of your
past collections, your
swift blows to the ground.

I am not afraid of your
threats delivered through
the caring words of others
Be careful. I just don't 
want to see you get hurt.

It's true: I thought I may
dig a hole in the dirt.
Lie there. Live there. Line up
my stones to cast at anyone
who approaches. Loss knows 
you are here! Stay away.
Stay away from me.

But I was wrong. Who
was I to know what
would be left when you
turned your attention
elsewhere?

This is who is left, and
again I implore you to listen
and listen well:

I am not afraid of you
and your ability to take away.

I am astounded by what
rushes into the spaces you created.

I am not afraid of your certain
endings, your vast creativity in
making sure it is so.

I am, with the knowledge that
you eventually come for all things,
ready to loosely hold onto what
is given before you take.

I will not give the world
a duller, quieter, more fearful
version of myself in your shadow.

I will see you there, ready to
pounce in your own time, and
I am not afraid of you.

I will trace lines on the palms
of friends and trace lips on the
face of a lover and trace evolutions
on the stories of family and

I am not afraid of you or your
threats to take them from me.
From this world. From themselves.

I am not afraid of you.

My ability to love and tear
open and regenerate and love
again and open arms wide to
the recipients of my alljoy
is Greater than You.

I will not hide from wild
love it all its forms. I will
not hide from sudden and
prolonged bursts of joy.
They are of me and they
always return.
I am not afraid.

Instead, I will face the things
love light joy creative
and I will remind myself
You are not here yet. You are
not here yet. You are not here.
Yet.

My Best Fall

fall for
fall in love
fall short
fall down
fall apart

dip, dive, down, drop, fall, nosedive, plunge

my best fall
fell
fell short
fell down
fell apart

i prefer these days to climb

climb up
climb over
climb into
climb across
climb towards

arise, ascend, lift, mount, rise, soar

I will not fall in love
blindly
skipping across a hole
unseen

I will see it there
majestic and promising
and climb up to its peak

The Woman on the Beach

Wednesday 29 July, 2015
(This is a revision of something I posted to my online group last week.)

Today I was walking alone on Gwanganli beach here in Busan. An angry storm was approaching and the wind was whipping my unruly hair across my face. Not exactly ideal beach conditions, but I wanted to feel the sand under my bare feet, and something about the grey smoke of the clouds swallowing up the tall buildings struck me as beautiful.

Usually this beach is like a little sandy sardine can, packed with little sandy beach sardines; the Korean ones wrapped like mummies to keep the sun from damaging their skin and the foreign ones hopping about in skimpy pieces of cloth stretched together, welcoming any and all skin damage as long as it looks bronze in the meantime. For a bit of shade, umbrellas plastered with advertisements can be rented for $10. To bob about in the water, $5 will get you a raft shaped like a bright yellow doughnut. On any given sunny day, this beach is a sea of umbrellas and yellow doughnuts, mummies, and brown, near-naked foreigners.

Not today.

Today, with the clouds threatening rain, the temperature suddenly dropping, and the wild winds making the idea of staking an umbrella in the sand impossible, this beach was nearly empty. Here and there dark silhouettes of figures could be seen searching the water's edge for washed up things of fancy. An elderly couple could be seen staring across the water, almost wondering where it all came from. But for the most part, it was empty.

I tied the laces of my hiking boots together, tossed them over my shoulder, and walked from one end of the beach to the other. I let the sting of the cold water snap my thoughts back into now each time a wave crashed in. My mind followed the pulse of the ocean- back and forth. Before and after. When he was here, now that he's not. Things we did together in this city, on this beach, and things I'm doing alone now in the same place. There are always the waves.  Today's waves looked turbulent, but I was experiencing them as gentle thoughts.

It's ok. I miss him and it's ok. We were here and it's ok.

I was experiencing deep gratitude for this moment of acceptance, knowing it's not always so. But at this very moment, walking along the beach with a storm coming and my boots strung across my shoulders, I felt ok. I felt purely capable of doing this. All of it.

Then I heard her.

She was at first woven in with the sound of a wave crashing, and then as the sea silenced itself for a moment, I heard her clearly. It was the familiar sound of sobbing- no, wailing- no, of a world being smashed to pieces.

There, sitting alone in the sand, facing the water, was a woman in her late 40s, perhaps. Korean. And crying into the sky like only we know. This was the sound of great loss.

I passed by her, trying to give her the space I know I needed when I fell to my knees in a public space and out came the animal sounds. I knew these animal sounds.

I walked past and thought of how nice it is that in my little Tribe of After, my little online group of writers and mourners and beautiful people who have experienced great loss, we learn to be present without fixing. We bear witness without consoling. We are simply here.

I thought of how this sobbing woman, with arms stretched out to the sea, doesn't need to be told that it's ok. Because it's not. She doesn't need to have someone stop her from crying and make her feel better. Because she may not for a long, long time. I thought of how the best thing I can do is witness her pain.

I thought about how my lack of Korean would keep me from trying to talk over her grief, anyway, and what a blessing that is. Because suddenly there I was, crouched next to her in the sand, sliding a special bracelet of mine around her wrist. I was patting my chest and in simple Korean saying, "알아요." (Arayo. I know.) "이 아파요." (ee ahpahyo. It hurts.) "남자 친구 주겄어요." (Namja chingu jugeosseoyo. My boyfriend died.)

I know.
It hurts.
My boyfriend died.

She held my hand and looked at me in a way I also recognized. The "how the fuck did this happen when everything was ok?" way. It was the confused and grief-stricken face of somebody cast into the after. I knew that face.

I held her hand and closed my eyes, and I summoned the help of my Tribe. I guess I prayed. I prayed for this woman, touched by hurt so big that she'd set her reserved cultural ways aside and cry so publicly. I have never seen this before in Korea.

I knew that face.

I stayed that way for no more than a minute, touched the top of her hand, then her shoulder, then continued walking down the beach.

A storm was coming. The sky was ready to rip open and show this city what loss feels like. Wash over us, me and this woman, her knees to her chest, wailing like an injured animal. Drench us. Pelt our faces with liquid grey.

We can take it. In fact, we may not even notice.

I Am Here

For the month of July I am staying in the city of Busan, about 2 hours from where I live. It is a coastal city, and Korea's 2nd largest city (after Seoul). This is my first time back without Gareth. I've had first times back to other places. About a month after he died, I returned to Hadong for the first time. A first time to return to a place brings with it a whole flood of memories and then the grief that follows. All this gets unpacked or pushed aside while taking in and experiencing the actual events of here and now. It's a heavy load, really. Not impossible. Just heavy.

It's hard to return to places for the first time. Then it gets a bit easier. And a bit easier. And soon my own non-Gareth related experiences are painted right on top and over the ones I had with him. They're still there. But they're not what everybody sees anymore, including me.

Walking around Busan National University's area tonight, I was feeling the heaviness of my grief. It was a little hard to put my finger on what it was exactly, and then I saw this sign:

I am here.
The sign says so.
Here I am.
I am here.

I am in Busan.
We were here.
Four times.
I am driving past
the coffee shop near
Jalgachi Market where
you were impressed
with the sight of a single
tree below. You wrote
about it and how it
reminded you of
Christchurch. I am
driving past that
tree. I can see up into
the window where you sat.
I am here.

I am here.
I am walking along
the beach at night.
Weaving past couples
holding hands and
taking selfies. 
We were here.
I am sand in my toes.
We were sparklers
spinning and an old
man laughing while
we danced.

I am here where
Christmas lights
hung one December.
You photographed me
near a tree made of
bright white bulbs.
I was smiling, swinging
shopping bags full of
your presents. Your
presence. You were
here. I can see our
shadows where we stood.


I am here.
I am stepping on
and off subways.
I am climbing stairs
and turning corners.
I am city air and
swelling noise and
people pushing and
lights blinking and
ocean waves slapping.

I am still while
everything
else is moving past.
In this place,
I am still.

I am
still
here.

And you are not.