Day: June 22, 2012

Retreat Writings, 2012, Part 3

/ Clare L. Martin

My Body Remembers the Music it has Made

I am so glad I brought my guitar. I brought lots of great music too. It is lovely to sit uninterrupted and listen to great music. I wish I had a piano.

Leave me alone in a room with a piano and I will pour myself out onto it. I will physically overwhelm it. I will find the melodies in aural space.

I lived a year humming to myself, and in public.  I have a head for melodies. I would like to write a song. This has been elusive to me. I used to sing all of the time, especially when I was a child at grandmother’s house.  Could I be a songwriter?  I need to build up my hand strength and dexterity.

Coming Down

I think I have finally come down. I have found a home in my skin. I am sitting alone in the dark. I know I have a friend in the world, he is sleeping alone tonight. He is thinking of me. I hear the string’s resonance. I hear the last outcries of the birds at dusk. They have found water and fruit. I am awake and aware but slipping slowly into the hush.

THIS LOVE EXCEEDS ME

This love exceeds me. This love is not my own, but is offered through me. It is an energy that permeates all. I am going to silence. I am going into quiet, that solitary place. I let my worries fall away. I am very blessed with all of the opportunities that have come my way and the ones I have opened myself to.

Time to go to bed.  (8:15 pm)

Retreat Writings, 2012–Part 2

/ Clare L. Martin

Wants

Here I am being honest. There is no one here to lie to–

Here I will give in to wants. I pour a glass of whiskey and stir in a measure of water. I drink it fast to hit my blood quicker.  This time I wanted it. Is this solitude to be wasted indulging my senses, feeding the cravings of a former-current-future addict?

I give up the binding control which has ruled me for so long. I surrender to the quiet.  There have been so many pressures.  Money, fights, disorder— I am so conflicted.  I think it is all the more reason to be here.  I can’t control them. I am a weed. I want the garden to flourish.  I keep waiting for this CD to skip in the same place my vinyl album from 1981 skips. Tattoo You.

I think it is time I take a shower. My throat smells like a cigarette.  My lungs stink. My blood is a toxic sludge of carcinogens. I quit smoking five years ago after Daddy died.  I did it in his memory and because I was concerned for my health. I have high blood pressure and I don’t need to risk my health any further.

The day I left for this retreat, I told myself I was going to buy a pack of cigarettes just for this getaway, just this once, and I plan to stick to that. When I get on the road home I am chucking them out of the window, or in a trash can, I am no litterbug. Then I am done.

I think smoking is a way of escaping/delineating from others. It is also a sign that I am misdirected on my path (I think) or maybe I am just taking a detour with potholes. Whatever it is I know I will be done with it when I return home. There is no place in my day-to-day life for smoking. I just had the Five Year Itch and I scratched it.

Do you believe me? Do I believe me?  Be careful what and who you believe.