have been

I have been dreaming vividly lately.
I have been working hard enough to sap the energy from much of the rest of my life.
I have been realizing that I am walking a delicate balance between holding on to the thread of my true dreams and making enough money to fulfil them and not permanently damaging my body/self in the process.
I am realizing the reason why it takes generations to get out of poverty.

It is my father who can stand on his head and kept bees.

It is my mother who donated the color of her eyes and her fierceness.

And, I have been contemplating why I have been happy to keep so much from my parents, to stay far away physically and mentally.
Further, it is perfectly acceptable for me to determine who in my life shares in what.

For a long time I have let anyone in on most of it, trusting,and they often broke apart and smashed things that were too delicate to be exposed...ideas just surfacing or forming, feelings just noticed, plans and intentions barely begun.

I have been an open book, believing people who loved me or cared for me would be gentle with my pages, appreciate what was there.

But we don't do that.

We read things in others' lives that we are afraid to read in our own and we react. We burn and condemn. We scribble out, we question where these things came from. We attempt to destroy in others' what we cannot look at in ourselves.

Wanting to merge with all, I have confused openness with union.

I have finally understood that no one can read the whole book.