TRUE LOVE

I have a confession...
of a torrid love affair I am having....
...
....
...
with myself.

after years of merely being an acquaintance
perhaps even "a friend..."(though of the love/hate variety...)

I finally saw that special something I thought I'd been missing..
because I'd been so convinced that I didn't have it.

A Love story:

I stood upon the mountain... and I looked back... at all the miles
my own two sturdy feet had carried me.

over rocks.. ledges.. lush greenery and broken branches...

MY FEET... my hobbitish feet with the crooked toes and
the marks of my illness forever etched in them...
my yucky feet with the three tiny black hairs that sprout from each big toe
my gigantic feet that grew two sizes from the surging hormones of my crowded womb...
my feet...
MY feet.

And now I see the stripes of scars upon them... the imperfection in not having red glossed toenails and a pumice stone... and I LOVE them.

I climbed and crawled down through the darkness...
distracted by the glittering display of light on cave slime...
stumbling stiffly along... uncomfortable in my own body...
relying first on the love of my family...
then as my comfort and understanding grew, on my own eyes and mental acuity...
and finally on nothing but feel... trusting in my own senses in this unfamiliar realm
ears alert to the sound of the drops of water to my right...
fingertips grazing the slimey cold texture of the wall to my left...
breathing deeply and peacefully in and out...
each step careful and deliberate... stepping.... stepping.. step. step. step...

and then I fell.

One thousand solid steps and in my complacency... monotony... lulled into security...
suddenly the ground failed to be found by my right foot...
and in the darkness I crashed down to the rocks below me
stunned... and then in pain I lay there...
mentally feeling for the bruises and wounds
searching for a light to see where I'd went wrong.

my downfall... I'd hugged the comfort of the wall too tightly...
and in my self imposed blindness I'd not seen the narrow ledge I'd been ascending

bruised but not broken, I stood.
turned out the light once more...and pressed on...
this time more carefully and more aware of the dangers to be had in becoming dulled by routine...

eternity ticked by... one carefully placed step after another...
step... feeling with the dirty toe of my right tennis shoe... determined not to make the SAME mistake... stepping.... stepping... convinced of my righteous journey...

and suddenly it hit me.


I was descending into a dead end in pitch darkness.

I'd seen that sign telling me so.

and all the time I'd KNOWN that just behind me, I'd briefly seen AND PASSED a staircase UP.


CAVE DWELLING: A mad dance to be tackled occasionally... but NOT without a purpose.


I emerged into the dusky night air...
knuckles missing... knees torn...hip bruised... ankles strained... eyes raw... and thirstier than I'd ever been before... and as I crowed out loud in JOY at my salvation... I KNEW that I was, am, and always will be not only the own worst enemy I'd believed... but also MY OWN BEST SAVIOUR.

Our bodies and minds are funny things... fueled by what we GIVE them, they can only give back the same... crap begets crap... and I'm tired of crapping on myself.

Better than GOLD is GREEN...
Better than couches and channels of discovery are mountains beneath your shoe soles...
and better than continued breathing of stale cave air is to toil through and emerge worn and victorious... knowing that you can survive the lowest of places... but that it doesn't mean you have to take up residence...

It is St. Valentines day....
and I am in LOVE with the most beautiful girl I've ever known.