Ghost Town

I found myself driving through the ghost town of my heart last evening. The place I was conceived, born,broken and left behind many times.

I understand now my own mother's aversion to North Portland. It is haunted and it haunts me.

That place gives me so much anxiety. The ghosts of memories past swimming around, a knot in my stomach.

Here is the place I was left behind. Here is the place I played as a child. Here is where my family came from. Here is where he took my hand and kissed me on the street. Here is where he died. Here is where a part of me died and lingers.... and so it went.

I had to call Shauna by the time I made it through, painfully stirred up, to Janzen Beach. I needed her to talk me down from the ledge of anxiety. Someone who beleived in me- who knows this journey from her own time spent on it.
I was on my way to a family reunion of my mother's family- almost all of which I had not seen in over a decade. And I was a wreck.

Lost in my own place of origin. Does this place define me? Who I am and where I will go?

I have always preached that we cannot know who we really are until to we truly understand where we come from.

And where is that for me exactly? A lot of pain. A lot of suffering, lying dormant these many years, only to be triggered into awakness by people, places- words essentially.

I feel stuck in this place- swimming in a sea of anguish like I have not know before. Words fail me in some ways... and yet I am here typing these words out.

Scooping.
Purging.
Pouring. Begging for it to be over.

I think about making a map- a map of the places that hurt in this town. And to go to each one by myself. And feel it. Observe what comes up for me. Feel it to its maximum being. And then..... ask myself if I need to hold onto that place, that person, that feeling.

I know the answers before I will speak them. But experience makes up for where words fail.

Driving home from my cousin's last night, and a reunion of 4 generations of women, I was behind my Grandmother and her boyfriend, with my mother behind me. Driving on the freeway past the exits that lead to painful memories. And I thought to myself-" Wow. Look how loved you are in this moment. These people- your family- are supporting you and protecting you in this moment through this painful place. Look at that. Unknowingly, there presence soothes you and reminds you that you don't just come from one place- you come from many . And you will visit more in the time to come. "

this too shall pass....