Haibun: Stepping Through
Facing difficulties can be as anxious as walking miles through a harsh desert pass and not knowing if there will be injuries, scorpions, a pack of coyotes, or my own victim stories awaiting to attack me.
My own victim stories attacking me played out for me in the process of falling behind over four months in rent once. At a 100% commission job that required my own funds to generate more business, I told myself I was too broke to get through it. As one month became two and three behind, I gripped my “I can’t because...” narrative that crippled me like a hurt leg, a leg needing to walk to loosen up but is nursed into worse cramps from sitting there. I hid from the people who could help me as if they where a coyotes, and instead, grew more alone, ashamed, and hopeless of getting through it.
Finally my landlord said he’d need to evict me if I fell any further behind. No new prospect of money, still a fire ignited in me. Turning first to my family and the church I went to, I got enough help to push back the eviction a month and keeping the electric on. A step. I miss my Hemingway and Steinbeck Hardcover Special Edition Collections, as I do my autographed Joy Harjo poetry book, but I sold them. Another step. Another point I returned my office cans for a refund knowing I needed gas for business and eggs for breakfast. And another step. Later that year, as I let go of an industry that didn’t want me either, my landlord and I stepped through my packed up apartment. He said I was the only person he’s dealt with to catch up from such a deep hole. I caught up because I was unrelenting about catching up.
I now walk into unknown passes remembering I can be more savage than anything looking to prey on me, because I was. My savageness, I believe, is something we all have and it’s only a matter of getting to it. For me, it took working on my heart the year and half before all this to access I am loved and worth denying any predator an easy kill. And with time, I’m becoming more my predators’ tormentor.
this wild desert pass
now and past en masse, on foot.
winter, nothing lasts
My own victim stories attacking me played out for me in the process of falling behind over four months in rent once. At a 100% commission job that required my own funds to generate more business, I told myself I was too broke to get through it. As one month became two and three behind, I gripped my “I can’t because...” narrative that crippled me like a hurt leg, a leg needing to walk to loosen up but is nursed into worse cramps from sitting there. I hid from the people who could help me as if they where a coyotes, and instead, grew more alone, ashamed, and hopeless of getting through it.
Finally my landlord said he’d need to evict me if I fell any further behind. No new prospect of money, still a fire ignited in me. Turning first to my family and the church I went to, I got enough help to push back the eviction a month and keeping the electric on. A step. I miss my Hemingway and Steinbeck Hardcover Special Edition Collections, as I do my autographed Joy Harjo poetry book, but I sold them. Another step. Another point I returned my office cans for a refund knowing I needed gas for business and eggs for breakfast. And another step. Later that year, as I let go of an industry that didn’t want me either, my landlord and I stepped through my packed up apartment. He said I was the only person he’s dealt with to catch up from such a deep hole. I caught up because I was unrelenting about catching up.
I now walk into unknown passes remembering I can be more savage than anything looking to prey on me, because I was. My savageness, I believe, is something we all have and it’s only a matter of getting to it. For me, it took working on my heart the year and half before all this to access I am loved and worth denying any predator an easy kill. And with time, I’m becoming more my predators’ tormentor.
this wild desert pass
now and past en masse, on foot.
winter, nothing lasts
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| & Haiku: Desert Pass |
