the place time stays

The place time stays

and does not grow, each breath illumined

endways, endless

changeless, still.

The place a face

is held until

each thought crosses,

is redeemed,

The place we hold

and hold, and hold

and do not change,

fully unfold,

Where changes, if they come,

are counterpoint

to just the

quietness,

the endlessness,

the place time says

we are---

******

Things have been moving too quickly for my liking. This year hardly seems to have been here at all, and my children are growing so quickly, and there are times when I look up at the bare branches of the sweetgum tree outside my house and could swear they were covered in flaming red leaves just a moment ago.

To remedy this almost panicked sense of ceaseless change, I moved really slowly yesterday. When I woke, I lit candles and did gentle yoga, and then sat in the garden to drink a cup of tea as idly as i could manage. I watched the steam curl up in long strands of early sunlight and let my eyes follow the first waking motions of the winter birds in the lemon tree.

As the day warmed I packed up my paints and my notebook and cycled down to the ocean, slowly, stopping to pick dandelions and watch herons and dip my toes in the suddenly furious waters of Ballona creek. I dug myself into the shelter of a dune and painted the ocean. I leaned up against the edge of a bridge and painted the San Gabriel mountains. I sat in a tea shop and wrote poetry and nursed a cup of hot cider for nearly an hour (breaking my record of 43 minutes with the morning tea!)

On my way home I stopped to do tai chi in my old neighborhood, drawing it out until the sun set. I walked to the grocery store, stopping to greet every single person I came across. I carried my groceries home, breathing in the crisp air and watching the clouds cross the first stars.

Time passes, whether I acknowledge it or not. It was nice to take one day to look time fully in the face. And to appreciate this place I am, now, whether or not it is my final winter here.

There is lots of other drama, but as this secret blog is becoming not-so-secret, I am finding it more and more difficult to adhere to the goal of radical honesty I began with. Sigh.

May we all find new understanding in the transformations of this new year. And may it take a little more time to pass than the last one.