Intimacy Lost

in

it’s a thing we downplay.
linking our souls to another’s.
for that is what you’re doing when you willingly join the intimate dance of a relationship.
when you choose to be vulnerable, a consistent kind of vulnerable, with another person.
because it’s a kind of shared intimacy that you only experience with one person at a time. 
sometimes even one person in a lifetime— should you be so lucky.
it’s an experience that often escapes words.

to show yourself, all of yourself, to another person in such a way, i don’t know that there’s a braver thing you can attempt as a human being. 
i’ve only truly, fully, done it once.
and it was something i took years to recover from once that intimacy was broken.
it isn’t a rare thing, most of us have been to this kind of depth with another soul. it isn’t always romantic either. for there are many ties that bind, and not all are made up of one kind of love.
and yet, we scoff and scorn the overwrought heartbreak of those of us who’ve gone there and have to come back.
we encourage the pushing-under-the-rug of the emotions and the reckless-quick-remedies of the sloppy mending of denied broken hearts.
we roll our eyes at the repetition of admonished pain, and tearful late night calls of confusion of the once-again laments of “if-how-why-when’s”

it’s not encouraged, this kind of process of grieving.
“get over it”
we say.
“there are more important things to focus your energy on”
“they don’t deserve your tears”
“it happened, but it’s in the past, let it go”
“there’s someone better out there for you”

but a healing is in order to properly let something go.

to let something go fully, you have to know where all of the pieces are.
otherwise you’ll continue to find them, scattered about, probing you back into the pain of a low-light reel of experiences past.
no, you have to gather all of the pieces, examine them, understand them to the best of your ability, and those you cannot, you come to terms with. 
and then, once they are all in your arms, once you have grieved a thing once whole, you release the pieces then, and only then. 
for prematurely doing so isn’t a full healing.
drowning the pieces with tears and whiskey doesn’t help (though for a night or two in the interim it might…)
throwing the pieces off of cliffs and into seas doesn’t help
trampling the pieces under your rage and fury doesn’t help.
running away from the pieces doesn’t help either- though that is the one most often tried.
it’s in the gathering, the cherishing, the knowing, of each sacred piece, of each experience, each memory, each circumstance in which you were brave. 

you were raw

you were open

you were honest

you were daring

you were loving

you were you

and celebrating that. 
celebrating the fact that you were a strong enough being to do that, to be that, to trust like that but that now, your strength is needed in a different way, it’s needed to let go.

that is the remedy for intimacy lost.

Transparent

in

trans·par·ent

transˈperənt/

adjective

adjective: transparent

  1. (of a material or article) allowing light to pass through so that objects behind can be distinctly seen.
    "transparent blue water"

i want to be that.

i want to be transparent.

because that’s what i want to be a vessel of:

l i g h t 

This Is The Time Once Again

in

i came across this writing again recently that i wrote in october of last year.
it resonated with my soul in such a real way i wanted to re-share it. 

This Is The Time

this is the time in which you'll be split down the middle on things. in a sentence: it’s a transition from i-believe-this-because-you-do to i-believe-this-because-i-do.

 

this is the time in which your opinions and beliefs are traveling from the side of blind following to hard earned opened eyed searching and seeing for yourself. which will sometimes entail a fight-for-it-even-when-it’s-hard believing. this is the in-between moment of those two times. 

be okay with that. 

you'll end up on the other side eventually. 

 

this is the time in which you'll curl up under your covers late at night in the dark and have a three hour transatlantic phone conversation with your best friend. a conversation about what love is. 

something will shift in your understanding during that conversation. 

don't let go of it. 

 

this is the time when you'll realize it's far more important to look people in the eye and offer them your hand, than it is to be comfortable. 

 

this is the time in which you'll understand, finally, why it is you do the things you do and how you are the way you are. but what's more than just understanding it, you'll love it. you'll love yourself. fully. 

 

this is the time in which you'll finally realize that, really, no one else gives a damn and so you shouldn't either. 

 

this is the time in which you'll realize there's a secret club. that you're the head of it. that everyone, in fact, has their own secret club. and what's terribly important and sacred is the people you choose to let into it. 

but in the same vein: don't be close minded and overly selective about who you let in. 

 

this is the time in which you will be told it will be okay. 

this is also the time in which you will actually believe it. 

Enroute

in

and so this then is my realization. 
 

to know oneself is something. 

but to know oneself with another is something else entirely altogether.
 

and what is more, a farther reaching wonder, is that in the grasping for this true unshakable knowledge, a necessity in this life, is whether or not this is a knowing you can achieve before you’re with someone.

or if it’s something that you aren’t able to truly know, truly learn, truly grasp, until you are tested and tried by the during-process-enroute of being with someone.

Tumblehome | An Overnight With Luna

in ,

this was my first overnight on Luna. 
a little over a year ago now.
it's crazy to think that she's been with us for a year and a half. 
it seems like just yesterday that we drove across the country to get her.
such a wonderful addition to our ever changing boat family.

adventures can be had anywhere. but the ones on the water always end up being my favorite.


A crisp overnight sail.
Listening to The Replacements, drinking beer-then-whiskey, "I don't think Morrissey cares about French girls", knitting in the cockpit, stuffing over-layered limbs into sleeping bags and underneath piled high blankets and watching the night progress and move behind and around a lone lit lantern with a kind of enrapture and attentiveness that can only come from being in the warm belly of a boat on a winters night out on the open water.


these are film photos, but you can also see some digital ones from the same trip here.