Escorted Through Sleep By My Muses

I walk into the room and set down my bag. The room is dim and foggy, as yet unformed. The only tangible things are my overnight bag and my sense of dread. I am at a retreat of some kind. Like summer camp for adults. Excruciating sharing and splashing in the pool, small talk with strangers around a fire and someone will surely weep openly over an ancient wound before the weekend is done. I sense networking. The very word crawls up under my skin like an invasive weed and drains my energy. I want to be alone.

 I look around the room. My subconscious has done well. Thick carpets of Central Asian origin, a window seat without a window, piled with pillows. Inviting and safe, like a nest. The bed is a dense thicket of silk, velvet, fresh cotton sheets, more pillows. All of it - the carpets, the pillows, the blankets, the walls - is done in the rich jewel and earth tones I prefer. There is an empty desk - simple, small, of dark wood. I am comfortable here.

The dread starts to abate and I turn to grab my bag and find some clothes. My trickster mind has hidden my bag and replaced it with a closet. Resigned, I know I will find my clothes there. The closet is filled with negligees, all of them white. They are beautiful, tasteful, thrilling, revealing. My thought is not: I can't go out dressed like that, but instead: I will have to shave in order to go out dressed like that. I hate to shave, but I need to wear those dresses. I want to wear those dresses. They will make me beautiful.

 A basin appears on the desk, rich shaving lotion and a good, sharp razor. I'm naked now, perched on the edge of the desk, carefully shaving my legs. There is a pounding at the door and I'm gripped with doubt. Am I late for an activity? Is it a welcoming committee? Is it a roommate? Go away, I silently tell the pounding and go back to my legs.

The door bursts open and there are three. A jostling crew of burly men. Handlebar mustaches, large piercings, covered in beautiful tattoos. They don't frighten me. They amuse me and I bid them come in. They are playful and large and they fill the room. They touch everything and exclaim. They bounce on the bed and toss pillows at each other. They pull the nighties out of the closet and say it's time to get dressed. Not yet, I tell them, I'm not ready. They pick me up and toss me back and forth between each other like a game of keep-away - naked and soapy, half-shaven legs. Stop it guys, I tell them, I'm trying to do the tricky part behind my knee. They only laugh and toss me some more.

Somehow I have managed to finish shaving and get dressed. My new clothes glow white against the darker tone of everything else in the room. They are slippery and cool against my skin. They fit perfectly, but feel foreign on me. Too beautiful, like an impostor. My burly men laugh through absurd facial hair and assure me it is really time to go. One on either side, one in front - my entourage. My sidekicks each offer me an arm. I look down to take them and realize their tattoos are words. Thousands and thousands of words. I am excited, I am relieved. I look toward the open door and I wake up.

A Surprising and Tree-mendous Decision

One of my dear friends and I have a tradition of coming up with a word for the new year. It's kind of like a guiding principle that over-arches what we'd like to accomplish in the coming months. We share it with each other and then spend the rest of the year using it to remind and encourage each other through whatever life decides to toss our way. It's a comforting ritual and a useful one, too. Two years ago, hers was "Health", mine was "Embrace the Hotness". Last year hers was "Action", mine was "Clarity". This year, she has come up with two separate, but related and perfect words for her year and I have been completely dumbstruck. I have had a general idea of what I want to spend the year working towards, but like most things that are worth describing, it has been difficult to pinpoint a word.

This evening I was loitering about the garage and thinking that perhaps I had achieved perfection and that's why I hadn't thought of anything yet. This is a lie. I was thinking that I was so bogged down in my own head that I couldn't see the light of day so instead I stared out into my windy, soggy, muddy back yard and let go of the reigns for a bit. Surprise, surprise! My mind galloped up immediately to a juicy apple of a word and munched away. I wonder when I will ever learn that I need to let go of the reigns from time to time? That's a whole other post.

My word for this year is tree.
For 2012, I would like to be a tree.
I want to draw nourishment from my roots: my faith, my family, my core.
I want to be steadfast and strong.
I want to be able to sway in my extremities. To maintain the sort of flexibility that keeps me from snapping even in the most torrential winds, while still keeping my feet firmly planted in the ground where I've chosen to stand.
I want to provide shelter and protection to those who need it.
I want to be useful.
I want to age beautifully.
I want to reach outward and upward to the sky and accept the rain, the sun, the wind and possibly the squirrels gracefully.
I want to accept the seasons of change that inevitably come and to do it in the way I was meant to.
I want small children to climb on me and seek solace in me.
I want to shed the dead things when the time comes to do so and to grow new fruit in its time, too.
I want to be constant. I want to be grounded. I want to be solid.
Most of all, I want to remember that I am surrounded by a forest: from saplings to gnarled old trees, to the nurse logs of the trees who have fallen but continue to give of themselves for new growth. I want to remember that I'm not a lone tree on an unprotected hillside, I'm part of a network of roots and shoots and branches of many who surround me. I want to see the forest and the trees.

Another friend of mine is a tattoo artist who has promised me a tattoo whenever he makes it out this way. My tattoo has been decided upon years ago. It's a tree. A lovely, twisted, strong tree.
This is it. The year of the tree.