Love letter to the woman of the in-between

To the She who holds the precarious balance between life and death- hers and her children’s, who hears the spirits and the 3am nightmares, who calls the angels and then the doctor.

To the She who knows that she has transfused her self into her baby’s bloodstream, and now must find a new source to sustain her morphing soul- but isn’t sure how yet.

To the She that is tired in ways there are no living words to express its weight.

To the She who finds herself surfacing into a strange landscape from her depths, but isn’t quite sure she wishes to stay yet.

To the She who feels her body transforming again, cells shifting their shapes, molding her into something foreign- a creature old and new in the same porous spaces of breath and bone.

To the She who is shedding the her of her youth, but has yet to enfold and absorb the her of the twilight, the ebb and the cayenne-soaked blood that fuels an aged and sharply salted wisdom. She is in between, hovering somewhere upon a threshold, straddling dimensions.

To the She that carries the unknown with grace on some days, hysterics on others.

To the She that is entirely uncertain of the future, her future, the days and years to come for all - their shape and texture, their fragrance and movement.

To the She that is both virgin and siren mistress, contained, wildly open, arms and legs spread, welcoming with a warning to come in reverence of her sovereignty or taste her biting fire.

To the She who begins seeing god in her pleasure, her body’s prayer that is sensual and sexual and satisfied - but is unsure of the dance as yet.

To the She who walks past the mirror and turns her eyes the other way to avoid the evidence of time, but gathers the ancient mirrors that reflect back all the deep work she has labored underneath for decades, building her foundations- only to smash them when she discovers a new structure must be made, a house of mirrors, fashioned of shards and sharp bits that cut all but the most careful of travelers through its corridors.

To the She that is Wife, but is pulling that garment from her shoulders and learning to husband herself at last, first. To the She that is contemplating what that means, and is standing in the midst of that gusty wind, refusing to be flattened by its power while she considers and decides the hows and the whys and the wherefores of such a task.

To the midlife She who is neither youth nor sage, girl nor elder, the She who is thick inside the waist of the Mother years, stuck between heavy breasts and full belly, children at her hems, but feeling the liquid power of fierce independence, and hungry arms that yearn for the Beloved.

To the She that is wayshower, pathfinder, deathmaker, gatekeeper. As all are.

To the She that is discovering deeper layers of her release and her control lurking within her, shadowy sisters bickering and vying for an ear. Yours. Anyone’s.

To the She that both fears and craves the call of her ancestors, the dreams of spiders and snakes, the open water that beckons and threatens at once.

To the She that is wandering a wilderness, escorted by seven scorpions, becoming goddess by way of her wounds and initiations, chosen and unchosen.

To the She with one foot in and one foot out.

To the November She who has passed the door of the dead, but is not yet ready to emerge into the land of the living once more. To the She who is lurking in that darkened doorway summoning her signal.

To the She that is spending most of her time feeling the truest ‘I Don’t Know’ she has ever felt, and the She refusing to move on until she does.

To the She that is saying the most honest words of her life, the frightening ones, with absolutely no assurance that all will be well in the aftermath.

To the She who has lost all interest in the fight, and instead has come to desire the real, the satisfied, the fulfilled above all else, even as she goes about carrying her worlds skillfully as she ever has. She is a paradox of desires and duties, the erotic and domestic dances, the sacred and the profane. 

To the She that holds two or more selves in her one body, and begins to acknowledge that there will likely never come a day when it will be entirely comfortable. 

To the several Shes that are squirming in one skin.

To the She who is wildly distracted, preoccupied, wound up, easily bored, vacillating from one pursuit to the next, at odds with herself, at loose ends, fragmented and fractured, confused and irritated, overwhelmed by the musts and defiant of the have-tos. She is birthing herself into a new atmosphere, and is feeling the strangulation and pressure of the journey there, from the old and familiar roadways to a terrain entirely devoid of civilization as She knows it. It is wild country.

To the She who remains, in spite of her urge to flee, who glares back at her traumas, silently daring them to defeat her, but feeling the tremor in her knees all the while.

To the She who is committed to understanding the timing necessary for a sacred destruction, rather than taking a reckless mallet to all she has built thus far. 

To the She who’s hands are shaking with the effort to hold still until that understanding enlightens her.

To the She who is reaching out for support, and the She who feels she cannot at this time.

To the She who rides the dangerous wind knowingly, bravely, unaware of its final destination, but trusting it anyway.

To She who is waiting, I honor you. I see you. I love you.