I am not one for prayer.
I am not sure about hope, several past decisions, or
the trajectory of my path, but
I am fairly confident
we shared something meaningful once.
That may be enough
to pull me through this day,
to help me remember
we can all get through anything
when friendship offers what it does, as it is meant to.
It is greater than a prayer.
It is the basis for hope.
© 2019 j.g. lewis
I struggled with it. Yesterday, when the flow was right and each letter appeared to be falling into the correct order, and as each word seemed to propel me along, I stopped.
A dead stop, an unmitigated stop. An unintended stop; it was more than a pause, more than a period.
A stop, a full stop; a debilitating stop.
One word
.
One word was all that was stopping me from continuing with a deeply personal poem I’d been working on. It was a one-syllable word at that.
I didn’t want to use it.
I searched for alternatives, but nothing else worked. Not one other word, or a series thereof, could substitute for the word I had used. No other word could convey the rage, or the frustration, in the exact way this word did.
Fuck.
The F word: it’s one of those words. It’s one of those words that traditionally raise eyebrows. It’s one of those words you are told, as a kid, you shouldn’t say. It was a bad word. I remember my brother said, “fuck”, one time, in the company of my parents. It was the only time. I recall Mom’s eyes bugging out, and Dad always had that look when he turned angry. I learned then I wasn’t going to make the same mistake, ever. Fuck, no way.
Yes, its one of those words, one of those fucking words there are really no replacements for, certainly in certain circumstances and depending, of course, on its usage. Check your thesaurus; in many or most (probably all) there are no offerings. I’ve got Roget’s Super Thesaurus 4th Edition on my desk, and it’s not in there. It’s not even offered as a synonym under ‘intercourse’ (which casts doubt upon the book jacket’s “Amazingly Comprehensive” claim).
I don’t use it often, not as often as I should or feel like (more in dialogue than description), and it really has lost its shock appeal; you hear it often in movies and music.
It’s one of those words.
It’s one of those words that has been censored, avoided, painted over, hushed, and stifled for generations. It still appears on public broadcaster’s list of words you cannot say on the airwaves. It’s one of those words that will get bleeped out. It’s one of those words that would get your mouth washed out with soap, or get you sent to the principal’s office. It’s a bad word.
It’s one of those words there are no real replacements for, like ‘peace’ (and I realize the folks at Roget have listed a handful of options for this word but, when you think about it. there are no synonyms, not in the true sense of the word).
Now fuck is in the dictionary, noun and verb (Oxford here). ‘Sexual intercourse’, ‘mess about’, ‘fool around’, and, ah, there it is: ‘expressing anger’ (I knew it fit into what I was writing). It’s no longer listed as slang, as it once was, but it is listed as “A highly taboo word.”
Come on, fuck off: “highly taboo”?
It might have been taboo, at one time, like even before my Grandparents were procreating. Yes, there are times when the word just doesn’t seem appropriate (but they did, by my calculation at least four times), but these days most everybody uses the word, from politicians to sweet little Grade 3 students, and their mothers.
You hear it all the time; sometimes it is not well used, and other times it is placed properly. A lot of times it’s as common as ‘um’ or ‘uh’ or ‘like’, like, you know, like, like that (and I’m sure you do).
It is a word that means so much, and can say so much. It is a word like love (and if you love, you are probably going to fuck, but you don’t have to love to fuck then it’s just sex and if it’s just sex then you are going to fuck a lot . . . but I digress).
I’ve heard fuck described as the Swiss Army Knife of words: a word for all purposes (perhaps not all occasions). It’s so utilitarian, with many functions. It describes rage (fuck you) and joy or happiness (fuck yeah), sheer disappointment (oh fuck), sexuality and sensuality (depending on the accent), be it a mistake or a misfit (fuck up), and for a one-syllable word there are so many inflections which make it sound bigger.
It is a useful word, in the right circumstances, and it is a wholeheartedly purposeful word.
Fuck is a great curse word. It could, or can I suppose, be a hurtful word. But there are many and more hateful words in the vernacular that are publicly acceptable and are used far too often. I can think of words associated with any of the isms (racism, sexism, fascism, capitalism) that I find more offensive, and you can say those words on television and get away with it (it still doesn’t make it right).
It should probably be used more than it is, but it may never be. There are far too many stigmas, stereotypes and old wives tales that will continue to silence the word. Sadly. This world has made progress in so many ways. Times have changed: women can vote (at least on my continent), my gay friends can marry, and even prime time television images can graphically illustrate the actions involved when fucking (they just can’t show certain parts).
Still you can’t say fuck, not everywhere, not when you want to or need to. Not always. It’s a bad word. Fuck.
But yesterday, despite my best efforts to find another, it was a good word.
It was the right word.
Fuck yeah.
© 2015 j.g. lewis
Freshly fallen snow accepts my footprints.
I continue.
How long have I travelled
and where will I end up?
The path is not solitary.
In my absence the footprints will be joined
by the definite steps of others, strangers I will never meet,
but each of them will leave a mark.
As I have done.
Footprints will continue after the snow has
melted or washed away with the next rain.
Every step impermanent, but not without purpose.
We are each on a path, at times without direction.
All of us have somewhere to go
even if it is not witnessed by others.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
Stand your ground, or step forward.
Moving backwards is not healthy. Time expires, the routes change as the distance grows, and you have gained so much wisdom from the day-to-day journey.
You got where you are by traveling where you have been.
It’s all too easy to become complacent in the moment, but what is keeping you there?
Think of all that is ahead. Keep moving.
Leave your troubles, or your pain, behind.
It’s not the past that holds you back, but what prevents you from moving ahead.
Emotional traffic and fear has built up, yes, but attitude and mind control can help breakthrough the barriers.
We move on for a reason.
Many times the unknown is healthier than knowing, or remembering, where you have been.
© 2018 j.g. lewis
Can you find salvation on a yoga mat?
Can you strengthen the body while loosening the mind and arrive at this place of freedom everyone talks about? Well not everyone, not the doubtful or the disbelievers (as I was, and perhaps still am) but someone, somewhere (in fact, a lot of someones) said it was an option.
An option was all I could afford. There was little left of me, and even less of what I could believe in. I had placed my faith in the unknown before, and every time I had come back raw.
I was searching for salvation, or redemption. I was looking for a path, any path, away from the deceit and self-deprecation I had settled into. I wanted to believe in something. I wanted to, again, believe in myself; if that basic tenet is not there, is there anything at all?
Could yoga be that one thing that could lead me away, or take me further, from just existing to a place of existence? Could I be enlightened?
Could yoga heal the heart, can it take away the shackles, could it make me complete? Would it better prepare me for this race we call human? Could I even qualify for the race if I didn’t feel I fit into the category?
I was scarred, I was scared, and, more than that, I was skeptical. How could a discipline that required no ego deal with one as tarnished as mine? How could I commit to daily practice when it was a fear of commitment that led to my unraveling? (Did I just say that?)
So I didn’t commit, I just went. I didn’t ask. I didn’t question my undetermined ulterior motives and I ignored my emotional consolidation. I just went; it was better that way. If you fill your head with expectations, it leaves room for little else.
I went and I kept going. Repetition, the same 26 postures every class. The aches and pains outside began to equal those I held within. How could I say I liked it when it changed daily, as did I? Sometimes the dialogue sounded like nagging, other days it was poetry. It spoke to me. I heard more, and listened more. I could feel something (a lot of things), I could breathe, I could bend, and I could suddenly find stillness. A wandering mind is not easy to tame.
Or had I been fooled? Now eight months in, have I been trapped? Was I beginning to believe in something I could not believe in? How could I so easily be convinced this was the hardest thing I had ever done? Were these even changes, or was I just delusional? Yoga could do that. Yoga could make you dizzy. Yoga could play with your emotions (whether you wanted it to or not) as endorphins engaged and oxygen began to reach memories and mayhem in unused corners of the mind.
Coming out of Camel, was that sweat in my eyes, or were those tears? Had my sweat become blood? Had my blood turned from rust, as my heart, as my soul, as my entire being, drained its toxins and spewed out the negative thoughts? Yoga indeed removed your ego, silenced your id and seduced your entire ethos as if to remind you how powerless you were. In so many ways Yoga was like life itself; it comes at you hard, it devours your mind, body, and spirit until there’s nothing left. Then it truly begins.
Yoga uncovered my faults. What else could spill from this body?
I was beginning to feel my body was now what I owned. Before it only seemed leased. It was a place that took in anything: bad food, good wine, misused words and misplaced love. I soaked it up. I held onto anything, clung to the anger, the unrest and torrential anguish until it made me a person even I didn’t want to be with.
All I had left were years of words and emotions I could not deal with, and decades of strife, and hurt, and confusion. It covered up anything worthwhile and would continue to eat away at all I had become until I could let it go. All I wanted was to be a better person.
Some find alcohol, or religion, or any other pay-as-you-go vice. I chose hot yoga or rather it chose me. I still don’t know why. Nor could I label it a calling, for you have to be weak to be called, and I (not then, not now) could ever admit to being weak.
I could never admit the truth, but I could seek it. I could search for some sort of salvation, even absolution. Yoga seemed easier than religion. It was cheaper than therapy. It seemed available, in the now.
Yoga was a match, for me. It made no promises and there were no guarantees.
I could give even less.
Still yoga for all it is worth became a solution to most of what I had been dealing with, a cure for issues I didn’t even know I had, and protection against future troubles certain to slip under my door.
So did I need salvation and did I find it, if that’s what this is? Could I render myself powerless to something where only you have the power to transform? Was giving in to yourself, the same thing as giving up completely? Is it truly spiritual when your spirit was not always there?
If yoga is salvation then it is also a contradiction. To be saved you must have beliefs, and to believe in yoga is to believe in oneself. Can you find salvation on a yoga mat? If you can come to find yourself when nothing was there, how could you reply to that question honestly?
As much as yoga may be the answer, it remains very much a question.
© 2013 j.g. lewis
“Where something becomes extremely difficult and unbearable,
there we also stand already quite near its transformation.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke