by tashmcgill | Mar 10, 2017 | Poems, Prose & Poetry
Someone once said to me that poems ought not to need explanation, but some do. I differ in opinion because it suits me. This is a poem about Love and Love is not.
–
Before I knew anything hard or cruel
like the world is
I believed in fairy tales
with one dubious eye open – but even then
never wanted one
never thought Love would look a certain height or weight
or would gaze at me through eyes a certain colour
with skin a certain hue
I only hoped Love would be nothing
like I had seen in a movie or read in a book.
I hoped Love would be an new idea.
–
I hoped Love would be an anchor,
as steady as concrete or steel
and at the same time warm,
I wanted a paradox of my own to explore.
I hoped Love would feel strong
and sound like a cheerleader
believing each of my
mad, genius, over-sized and wonderful ideas
was in fact, wonderful.
I wanted to Love to find me wonderful, an endless curiosity.
An unending conversation.
–
Later the hard nature
of the world taught me
how I did not know
could not know
the touch or voice of Love,
the sound or the feel of it.
I spent long hours talking to
the stars and the moon instead
to the curve of the earth and rippling sea
cheeks made damp by
my own ocean of salt water
my days poured out like sand
a broken hour glass
I spoke aloud and asked
how I could not know the
sound of Love’s voice
after listening so long
unless I had never heard Love at all.
–
Before the Universe answered
in that long silent pause of breath that is
light reaching between two stars within my sight –
that long of a breath I was left waiting.
The Universe still did not answer me
but a feather fell at my feet saying
‘Love is itself, warm and waiting
stretched from the stars to the moon.’
But this truth I refused, my body shaking.
–
I climbed to my high place
stared out into the sea
in my smallest voice
whispered to the Silent in my silence.
…….
It occurred to me perhaps
I knew what Love should be
because I knew so well
what Love was not.
I said to the Love strung between
the stars and the moon and the sea
‘Let it be kind, strong and generous
when Love comes to me.’
–
I met Love on a Thursday
but we did not recognise each other.
I was following feathers and
by the time I did see Love in
kindness, strength and generosity
I had learned that when Love is strong,
Love will probably be stubborn and
not all kindness is admirable but
there are other things that Love is.
Even kindness takes some getting used to.
Love was busy telling me
what Love is and is not
and Love didn’t want me.
I leaned in and learned the lesson anyway
what is was to listen and talk to Love
and then I returned to my high place
as close to the moon as I could stand
far above the sea, and said to the Universe
Now that I know what Love feels like,
sounds like and looks like –
I think I must talk to Love no more.
It occurred to me that silent or speaking,
telling me what is and what is not,
Love and the Universe are much the same.
And the Universe was still silent.
–
by tashmcgill | Feb 13, 2016 | Friendship, Love & Marriage, Mind
One morning last year, I woke from a dream and my head was full of thought; hanging like a wave waiting to crest for some time. The kind of billowy thoughts that are undefined; really more of a feeling. It was heavy and I searched to define it until I remembered the word; melancholy.
On this particular morning, I struggled to find reason for my melancholy. I was in the middle of an adventure overseas, I was surrounded with friends and I was drinking whiskey, not gin. I was not unhappy. I was content.
I made coffee and sat at my favourite window in a house I love. The sun was warm on my back and I was without obligation but to embrace the moment. Still my heart would not quicken and I could not lift my soul. And I remembered then; this is the Lonely. There was something within me longing to be heard; but the one to hear was not with me.
So I let it sit, let it dwell with me for the day. Loneliness becomes a more tolerable companion as soon as you acknowledge its presence, I’ve found. I let others assume the reason for my quiet reticence that day and then in the evening, alone in the quietness of my room, I said to the Lonely, ‘Thank you for today and good night.’
The Lonely wished me a clear night of sleeping and gently exited the room. What happened so that when I woke, the Lonely was no longer with me?
What the Lonely Is Trying To Tell Us.
Scientists speculate the human brain contains over 100 billion nerves, communicating complex messages. These nerves are responsible for communicating pain, injury and harm. But the soul, the spirit has no such system – or at least, not one so clearly defined or as understandable as neurons. So the intangible self must find ways of alerting us to when something is wrong with our spirit.
I believe that much of what we feel, sense and experience in life, good and bad – is part of the complex communication between the articulate mind and the intangible, voiceless soul. When change is required, when change is happening, when something good or when something bad is emerging – feelings emerge to guide us down the way.
The challenge is that we confuse these feelings for being a ‘state’ rather than a message. A message is something to hear and respond to; a state is something you have to morph from. The Lonely is trying to tell us something and the lonely won’t go away until it’s been heard.
I was talking with a friend who is recovering from a relationship breakup, the real kind where your whole being is redefined in moments. He spoke with sadness and tenderness about the emerging loneliness in his life and I witnessed many of the ways he tried to change his state of being. And this week, I’ve heard the same from many others as Valentine’s Day approaches.
“If I can just find plans for the weekend, I won’t be lonely.”
“So long as I’m with friends on Valentines Day, I’ll be ok and not think about it.”
“I’m not going to be alone, I am going to find a new relationship.”
Judge a person by their questions, not their answers.
That morning, I woke and encountered melancholy and realised my soul was trying to send me a message.
“Why are you here today, while I am in the company of so many friends? What are you trying to tell me?”
I asked the Lonely what it was saying.
Over the years, the Lonely has visited me before along with Sadness, Frustration, Hopelessness. At other times, Joy, Anticipation, Delight and Contentment have visited me too. But for today, here’s what I’ve learned the Lonely is trying to tell me.
I might be isolated. With people or alone, but either way disconnected. Usually it’s when my thoughts have traveled inward and haven’t been expressed. I have something that ought to be shared with someone but I haven’t shared it.
I might feel invisible or unnoticed in a crowd. This is the plague of the third-wheel, the calamity of the social single. It’s not always, but sometimes you feel you could be lost from the moment without people noticing you were gone.
I am lacking in intimacy. A thousand people to small talk with but no-one to understand the bitter-sweet irony of a moment or a glimpse of something we’ve seen before. An absence of shared memory or history. Often, loneliness exists in the midst of our dearest friendships and relationships because we’ve fallen into the habit of being with someone without being present to that person.
I am not engaged. For human beings, Bored and Lonely are sometimes telling us the same thing. We’re not engaged in the present. With the ones in front of us or with what might be discovered in front of us. We see things as they appear to be. We assume the blue hat is on the hook by the laundry door because it is so frequently there we forget to look for it. We stop noticing the small changes in the pattern of what we see everyday.
I am feeling uncomfortable or in a new environment. I long for something familiar. I long for security.
I feel Other and insecure. I feel alone and unlike anyone else. I am without a sense of home in this moment.
Sometimes I am just longing. Loneliness tells me my body needs touch. I need the embrace of another, the warmth of human skin and to share the breath of life. I need closeness and for my pleasure receptors to be firing. I need to respond and be responded to. That may not mean sex and sometimes it might. Loneliness reminds me that my body, mind and spirit are connected. Two cannot carry the load of three endlessly.
“Why are you here today, while I am in the company of so many friends? What are you trying to tell me?”
In the simplest of forms, loneliness is most often telling us that we need interaction and engagement with other human beings. The burden is that we may not always be able to dictate what kind of interaction we have. But be disciplined and choose which desire to feed.
Which do you feed?
There is a Cherokee story about a boy and his grandfather. The grandfather explains there are two wolves in battle within us; one that is good and represents hope and peace. The other evil and represents anger, sorrow and ego. The boy asks his grandfather which wolf wins and the old man answers, ‘The one you feed’.
When we assess data and information; we have to be careful to not let our assumptions lead to the wrong conclusion. You can find evidence for nearly any hypothesis, depending on the question you ask. So, if you assume that loneliness is a state and you must simply wait until circumstances change so that you are no longer lonely – you are using the wrong data. You have to be careful not to feed your loneliness based on the incorrect data.
But wait about on Valentine’s Day? Or family holidays? Similarly, it is incorrect to assume that a single form of interaction might appease the loneliness or need you have. It is madness to assume that any single relationship can satisfy the needs of a human being. We are complex and multifaceted creatures with maddeningly simple and complex needs. When loneliness enters your life, it’s not because you are single or unhappy in your marriage. It’s because your mind and body is trying to tell you something. When you respond to the message, things will change. Respond to the message first and then deal with the circumstances later.
I will not be any more or less lonely simply because I might one day share my Lonely with another. They will not be able to banish the lonely, but they may share it.
Today, I am single but that’s irrelevant. I am a person who is connected, engaged, present, intimate with a few, friendly with many. I can reach out for a hug when I need it or caress the cheek of a friend. I could take a lover or I could find a mate. But I will not be any more or less lonely simply because I might one day share my Lonely with another. They will not be able to banish the lonely, but they may share it.
You can hear me this Sunday night (February 14, 2016) talking about loneliness on NewstalkZB with Sam Bloore from 6 – 7.30pm.
by tashmcgill | Nov 30, 2015 | Community, Friendship, Relationships
You love fewer people than you think you do. And, if you need permission to care less diligently about some, in order to love others better – this is it. Feel free to hit delete.
I mean, of course, you’re kind and warm, welcoming and enthusiastic about lots of people when you encounter them in the street or with mutual friends. You’re never not gracious and friendly; making small talk while circulating the room. You listen to stories and remember to think good thoughts for those who are suffering and say a prayer if you are so inclined.
So, yes – you do care about people, in a general way of speaking. You care, in a general, non-practitioner sense. You care with the capacity that you have. You pay attention to your Facebook news feed. But you do not really love that many specific people.
Read that sentence twice. Follow the emphasis.
You do not really love that many specific, individual people.
You do not really love that many specific, individual people.
And that’s ok. In fact, it’s probably good for you. Indeed, I’m giving you permission, I’m asking you to consider loving fewer people, better. Let Love take on a heavier, more intentional meaning than when you talk about ice-cream or potato chips.
Our world is saturated with connection that lacks intimacy. Week after week, people tell me how brave and vulnerable I must be to write how I do on this blog or in social media. I share my reflections on an inner life and strangers halfway around the world are moved. I am moved because they are. I feel a sense of purpose in creating meaning for others. But I am not the meaning.
You see, I care about the people who read and engage with my words. I care that they are well, moving towards wholeness, being themselves, discovering bravery in intimacy and courage to use their own voices. I care, but I do not love you.
That’s ok. You shouldn’t need me to love you and you probably don’t. But some of us – the only care we receive is what comes back through those social media filters.
I can only truly love maybe 20 people or so. There are another 30 or so I love very much. There are another 30 – 40 beyond that I would feel their absence keenly from my world and be rocked by their tragedies. But I am an anomaly and almost none of those people experience my love through social media.
Most people only have room for 6 – 8 significant intimate connections outside their immediate family. That’s how many people you can truly love, engage and maintain intimacy with. I have a small family, I figure I get some extra numbers. I’m an extrovert, a writer and speaker. Part of my job is to connect with people. It’s almost effortless to collect people along the way and genuinely care about those interactions and outcomes. In the moment, when you’re there. And conceptually, afterward – even for a long time.
Anyone who lives in the present moment will find themselves well-connected to all manner of people; because we are able to give and receive in the moment of ourselves and others.
That’s life-giving, fulfilling and beautiful. It is the nature of Love when we are swept up in its outpouring to engage with others. It may be intimate for a moment but it is not lifelong.
With the exception of marriage (I still believe), our relationships are permitted to be seasonal. Not every fleeting connection was meant to last forever, but nowadays we accumulate relationships the same way people collect baseball cards. There’s always room for one more and always a new player joining the team. How are we ever meant to figure out the rules of engagement for every connection we make? How are we ever to find the time or the energy for all these connections.
Don’t get me wrong. Caring for people is great. Whenever you are able, care for someone. Caring is good and creates emotional connection, but Love will demand action too. We need to pare back our tribes so we can really care. To go deep again, not wide.
Love turns up in the middle of the night to a three word text message. Love is often invisible on Facebook, as a friend of mine reminded me. Caring for someone can happen in a moment; Love that follows through every promise grows over time. It’s a different kind of investment. You will learn this in the cruelest way when you realise someone you thought loved you, only cared. Then you will know what it is; to need to know the difference in how you love and how you are loved.
Loving some people and caring for others is kinda healthy. The ability to make connections deeper than Sunday coffee conversations and the ability to prioritize where you invest. More than checking Facebook status updates.
The trouble with navigating relationships in a world dominated by constant connection with people through social media, text and email – is that sometimes the ones you truly love are not the ones that dominate your time or your filters. Sometimes people get waylaid in their expectations and they want more Love than Care.
They forget that a Facebook or Instagram like
is not as weighty as a text message
which is not as weighty as an email
which is not as weighty as a phone call
and is not as weighty as your physical presence
when it comes to Love
because Love will always come with action.
Caring is enough, if caring is what I have to offer. But caring cannot get in the way of Love.
Hit Delete.
Facebook is an audience. A collection of people whom we’ve connected with. But my people, the people I love find themselves around my fireplace. The people I love eat my food. Still, the pressure builds to stay on top of triumph and tragedy through words and pictures on a dozen different channels. We love knowledge and some (most) are naturally curious. We love to discover what’s hidden or unknown. But a hundred connections that love real love and intimacy will never equate to the truth and power of being really known by a friend you love. Who hopefully loves you back. Those are sacred spaces, so you can’t have them or share them with all those people. No one has enough spirit for that. Except maybe Oprah. And even then, not even Oprah. She knows.
The power of real intimacy with a real person in comparison to the influence and energy of an audience. Neither is better, but they have different purposes and meaning in our lives.
So maybe you need permission to let some people go. To hit delete from your Facebook friends list, or eliminate the noise from people you care about to focus on the people you love. Delete pointless contacts from your phone. If you’ll never call them, don’t keep their number. Filter out the needless information and curiosities that fill up your day/mind/thoughts and open your spirit again to deep Love. If you are really brave, filter your little black book of calendar engagements too.
Delete me, if you need to. I get it. I care about you too and I want you to do a better job of loving the ones you Love. I want the same thing. You’ve got permission to gather yourself back from the hundreds of little connections draining your battery and making obstacles for true love.
by tashmcgill | Aug 10, 2015 | Friendship, Love & Marriage
I have something to tell you but first I must give you two definitions. Be patient with me, but come along with me to this place.
Love is problematic to define these days. A single word has been stretched through the ages to encompass many things that are not love. We have come to know love as a feeling, as many feelings. Feelings of acceptance, belonging, desire, companionship, friendship, trust, fulfilment, lust. Many of these feelings are about the Self, the Ego. In it’s most basic human habit, pursuit of love is an egocentric, the language of love is a lazy lens through which we seek meaning. We hope to satisfy our inner turmoil through external means. As if love applied externally, from outside of us, will heal our wounds and complete our emptiness.
Here is what I believe about Truth. Truth is a way of being and seeing in the world. Truth is not seeing things as they are, the definition of black or white, good or bad Truth and therefore freedom to live truly is not found in determining what is right or wrong. Which is why Truth leads to Truest Love, the kind of love that sees the possibility of hope and redemption in all things alongside the darkness. Truth lives in a world that is both good and bad, redeemable and hopeless.
Truth is bigger than us. Sometimes we forget Love can be too but we tend to reduce it to feelings; a transaction record of good and bad feelings that we keep within us. We try to make Love fit the emptiness we feel inside when perhaps we could fill that space with truthful things instead.
I am angry with you, I am happy about this. I feel conflicted in this belief. I am not sure about this situation. I am confused. I am undecided. I have decided and you will not like my decision.
This basic kind of love almost always involves a transaction with another person or people. “I felt loved because of what you said or did. Because of how you touched me or laughed at me, I felt secure, weak, sad, rejected, loved, desired.” Truth brings us back to self and the universe. Who am I? Who are you?
Truth looks inwardly to express something external into the world. Love searches in the world for something that will answer the internal. If you pursue Truth, you will always have a gift to offer the smallest or largest gathering of humans, because you can live outside of your own need.
So to the crux of it: I wrote here that I was giving something up – trying to determine the What-Is, What-Isn’t and What-If.
I have not given up on Love, but I have given Love up. I have given up Love for Truth. Not to give up on Love itself, but to give up the chasing of it. I am willing to embrace a life that does not rise or fall or find it’s definition in the way I am loved or find love in relationships with people. I am learning that accepting myself wholly is a most worthy endeavour, despite what feels uncomfortable and risky. Where I fear loss, I remind myself that being fully alive in this wondrous body and mind is a glorious pursuit. I am not bitter, I am not defeated nor deflated, I am not fatally pessimistic. I see a different type of future, where I, loving Truth most of all, might find more truthful love in any variety of expressions.
Truth is already waiting for me, within my grasp and with a sustaining, life-giving, soul-filling pulse. If I do not choose Truth, I might accidentally let go of it to chase Love and for what? Truest love settles within me and longs to be sought out, if I would just embrace Truth as a way of living and let her be revealed. She who is I.
Strong, idealistic, creative, sarcastic, witty, playful, sexual and sensual, a dreamer and doer, demanding and deeply emotional: this is just the surface of truth in my life. Lonely, brave, terrified and sometimes irrational, I am always well-intentioned and I try to demonstrate Love in my actions even when my words are firm and furious. I am passion in flesh and blood, letting nothing from my grasp without a fight if I desire it. And I desire many things. I desire. I am desire.
Yes, I have chosen Truth over Love and it has done nothing for my loneliness. But living in Truth is also accepting no external force can calm the inner turmoil. Not even your idea of God can resolve that which is unresolved within you if you cannot accept Truthfulness as a way of living. To choose Truth is no miracle cure for loneliness. Truth is key to embracing your loneliness.
Love promises the Ego there is comfort, security and belonging in being known.
Let me be explicitly clear: the more time you spend chasing this kind of love, the hungrier you’ll be. No one will ever love you hard enough, deep enough, true, rich, kind or fast enough. It will never be enough.
Truth tells you there will always be loneliness within your life, that grows and shrinks accordingly to your chasing of Love.
Truth will help you accept rejection and love deeply in the midst of your own sorrow, celebrating in times of sadness and of joy because Truth is always bigger than us and invites us into a bigger way of living.
Truth has always been the gift I have to offer, so I could not be more at home with myself than to give all else up to embrace it fully, and therefore myself.
Do you struggle to forgive simply through loving someone enough? Love is not the path to forgiveness. Truth is the path to forgiveness because the transaction is not based on putting things to rights but rather telling the truth of what is and what might be; side by side.
Do you struggle to show people your true self for fear of rejection or losing relationships? You require Truth to become fully yourself. Choosing not to live out of complete truth for fear of losing relationship, status or influence is a Catch-22 that quickly traps you into people-pleasing. It’s as if you begin to reject your true self so others won’t.
Do you wrestle with loneliness? Truth will set you free to embrace and understand your loneliness, to live with it rather than against it.
Yes, I have chosen Truth over Love and it has done nothing for my loneliness. But living in Truth is also accepting no external force can calm the inner turmoil. Not even your idea of God can resolve that which is unresolved within you if you cannot accept Truthfulness as a way of living.
So I have given Love up for Truth in order to tell you the truth. To tell myself the truth. To live truthfully in the world. Maybe I will also encounter Love along the way, but I will most certainly live in Truest Love.
by tashmcgill | Jul 14, 2015 | Bodies, Culture & Ideas
I did not earn these tiger stripes of mine. I am not one of the women who can claim bravery, sharing images of stretchmarks on Instagram. The hashtag is #loveyourlines. Search it and you will read some words that reveal how women really feel about beauty and its social constructs.
“Maybe we’ve been looking at it wrong. Maybe we’re not damaged, maybe these are the brands of our accomplishments.”
“I have struggled with my stretchmarks for years, but today I want to accept them. I’m not perfect, but I’m worthy of love and loving myself.”
“They’re like flames and like the Phoenix, I will rise above them.”
We talk as if the body fights against itself. As if we have fought, battled and finally lost perfection as the prize. Then we call that battle birth and say it must be worth it. Our sacrifice is worth it because of what we made.
If a woman must say she is beautiful because she made another human, because her scars are the product of love, because she sacrificed flawlessness to make another perfect little body to one day be wrecked by scars of love’ – then she does not say ‘Because.’
She is saying ‘despite’.
Qualifying For Beauty.
We are looking for one more way to qualify for beauty and find our meaning. It’s not that our meaning is solely found in our beauty but physical beauty and the popular feminine are entwined without distinction. So our language becomes muddled and unclear. We mistake our words in trying to accept ourselves fully. We are saying self-acceptance and love lies beyond overcoming the obstacle of our physical imperfections, we talk ourselves into self-acceptance by worthy cause and thus; forget – our bodies alone are not our beauty. In fact, our bodies are not our beauty, just a vessel of it. A machine.
If I didn’t know that our bodies are not our beauty, it would be easier to believe. Instead I know our bodies are vessels for beauty not beauty itself. Carriers of beauty and at times beautiful, our bodies are machines designed to slowly burn up as we decay physically, mentally towards death. We ought to use them up, wrinkled and worn down. We ought to wring every ounce of beauty from within these bodies.
Isn’t it strange that our bodies might be loved and yet our True Selves remain untouched, but when we are truly loved and seen, our bodies can be also loved?
Maybe I could stand it if the tiger stripes of birth were my story too. Little silver marks that fall delicately around my curves. Like lace over my hips and gathered like fingerprints under my belly button. Velvety to the touch, in the right light they shimmer, like a roadmap of where to touch me. In truth, the map says – here’s where I stretched. Here’s what’s left behind of the sad and heavy days, here’s what you didn’t know at 17. Here’s what you lost at 28 and found at 30 years of age. Here is my pale Scottish skin over strong thighs and proud breasts. Here is an extraordinary, sensitive machine that carries my self, my soul, my sense.
My marks are not qualified.
They are not beautiful because they came from something worthy.
Nor beautiful because they proved my womb is warm and useful.
They did not mark me as one who is connected by flesh and blood.
They are not battle scars.
They are not the remnants of some hard-fought struggle.
I am of sound mind enough to reason, these marks cannot make me beautiful – though you might tell me that, if I had given birth.
Truthfully, I have nothing worthy to attribute my marks to. Like many women who cover their first stretchmarks with the stretchmarks of childbearing, I grew too fast and shrunk too quickly, my skin could not keep up. Time has passed and those lines are faded. I do not qualify my imperfections to be considered beautiful. My body was made to be used up and I am doing a good job of that, perfecting it’s strength and ability for balance, grace and clumsiness.
In the same way, I am not beautiful because of my age or the lines on my face. I cannot be considered beautiful because I have lived so long, making this body last until my life is etched in leathered valleys.
Isn’t it strange that our bodies might be loved and yet our True Selves remain untouched, but when we are truly loved and seen, our bodies can be also loved?
My beauty is within. Seek it out.
