Emergence

As with the garlic, planted last October, there is emergence, slow re-engagement.  I’m beginning to move into pieces of my basic routine again, trailing used Kleenex.  The essential core of the cold has dissipated, leaving in its wake drippy congestion and a luxurious fatigue, drawing me under from time to time.

The quiet is magical, when I let it be.  There is a wave-like sense of time and space that comes only from having disengaged from the “regular” world for a while.  I am temporarily unhinged from my internal overseer and his demands of proper productivity and attendant schedule.  It is not the time to increase muscle mass; I’m not guilty that I’m not at the gym.  My brain power is diminished; urgency around decisions fades away. The winter garden is slowed to self-sufficiency, and besides that, we have no critical eye for the winter garden.  And my live-in partner is out of town.

Without an external scaffolding of engagement and commitment, time itself seems to shift.  It seems to open and expand somehow, softening. Despite the quiet, or perhaps because of it, there is a vitality here, a nourishment. I can rest here, for the moment, perhaps  heal within it, and through osmosis, come back with some of the silence.

From Mary Oliver:

Sunrise


You can
die for it - 
an idea,
or the world. People


have done so,
brilliantly,
letting 
their small bodies be bound


to the stake, 
creating
an unforgettable fury of light. But


this morning
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought


of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun


blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?


What is the name 
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us?  Call it
whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.

From: New and Selected Poems, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992),  pp. 125-6.

A Note from Down Under

A cloudy, uncharacteristically warm January Sunday, already in the 40’s, or so I imagine because the bird bath isn’t frozen, as I look from the kitchen window, and there is no discernible frost on the ground.  It is much later than I am usually here, 8:45, but this cold has me on its own schedule, as it bears down with its burden of mucus and lethargy. 
This affliction and I are on our fourth day, the third of confinement.  It has been awhile since I’ve been felled by an upper respiratory revolt, and I’m trying to succumb gracefully.  But even though I have had a witness (John is home this weekend) I have found myself only belatedly realizing, “oh, it’s 3 p.m. and I haven’t showered”, or “this is the same sweatshirt I had on yesterday and its none too clean.”  There’s something about being ill that cancels the good grooming part of my brain.
In fact, it cancels the time-keeping part of my brain as well.  Yesterday, as I lay on the couch under a blanket drifting in and out of cooking shows  (I slept almost entirely through Todd English’s trip to the Andes), I had the growing sense that this was now my life, that I had never been/done anything else, and would never be/do anything else, and once a sharp panic dissipated, a sneezing fit took over, and I just fell back into that stream.  It was fine.  Nothing else was possible. Such is the power of snot.
Such is the power of the body, the dense weightiness of it, with its waves of urgencies, advancing and receding.  We are its servants, in many ways, as it must be fed, emptied, bandaged, washed, soothed with caresses. Sometimes it must be medicated, and for me, that is always confusing, as I was raised by a mother now on 17 prescriptions who, in my formative years, drank raw egg and wheat germ milkshakes, a la’ Adelle Davis. 
Plus, as an eldest child with Leo rising, I would rather do “it” myself.  I have this innate sense that the body, not just my body, but the body can and wants to heal itself, if furnished with the proper pile of ingredients, that the body is in fact already hard wired with all manner of self-correcting mechanisms.  That the job of my thinking/mental self is to listen to all these symptoms and discern what needs to be added:  orange juice?  warm humidity?  sleep?
But it turns out that sometimes what needs to be added is the voice of somebody who has access to a prescription pad.  I’m not there yet, not this time, but I’m just saying. . .if these ears don’t clear up. . .well maybe. . .

It's January 27th. . .

. . .my late father’s birthday.  At 4 a.m.,  the Greeneville Tennessee LifeLine called to tell me that my 87-year-old mother had fallen. She is all right, they said.

All right, except that eight years ago, my then 80-year-old father had the gall to pre-decease her, leaving her in that bedroom alone, that bedroom where she fell, in the dark, last night.

My father was meticulous about his diet, exercised religiously at the YMCA, and played golf with his other semi-retired buddies whenever his work, church and community service allowed.  Reaching for the telephone, he fell - just the once - and broke a hip, went to the hospital and two agonizing months later, died of pneumonia.

My dear mother eats whatever she pleases, although she knows she shouldn’t; does not exercise, although she knows she should, and will quickly admit to both, to keep you from bringing it up. She has fallen countless times.  Her bones have been described as “paper thin”.  Her much thinner sister is recovering from her second hip fracture in as many years, having fallen, to my knowledge, just those two times.

Is there a moral to this story?  Should one eat fig newtons for breakfast and then stay in one’s chair? Was the relentless discipline worth it, to my father, who may still be astonished that his congenitally more indulgent wife lives on and on. Perhaps the moral, if there is one, is that try as we might to draw straight lines on top of this unruly life, the terrain is too bumpy. The rather pitiful results will not offer the ultimate reassurance we seek. We cannot get from here to there via a straight line.  That second point, the one required at the other end of our inflexible ruler, is always fuzzy.  Even if you are sitting right now with the bottle of pills and a giant glass of water, or the loaded pistol, or are reading this standing on bridge railing, that second point is a crap shoot.  The capsules are not strong enough, the pistol just misses the critical spot, a giant bird catches you by your shirt collar. . .its never a sure thing.  Miracles happen.  And on the other side of the scale, so do accidents. This is one of the issues I have with dogged insistence on "the bright side."

Life ain’t logical, despite our desperate efforts to make it so.  And it seems to me too enormously creative to be predictable.  It is my experience that a grateful attitude will get you much further in this life and I would far rather spend time with someone who sees the glass as half full.  And I am quickly exhausted in the company of Debbie Downer, especially when I am the one in the role.  But to claim that “its simply a flesh wound” when the stumps of all your limbs are bleeding makes sense only on Monty Python. 

If you have bleeding stumps, either physically or emotionally, (and who hasn’t been there?) it does no good, it seems to me, to ignore the growing red stain on your white carpet, while from some spiritual altitude, you point out the same color on the fragrant roses in the front yard.  Yes, it is true that it is the same color, and yes, they smell fabulous, but what in the sam hill are you going to do to stop the bleeding? Why don't we start with a quick round of antiseptic and bandages and then we’ll think about composing a psalm to the roses?

Life is both wounds and roses, treadmills and cookies, or mine is, and it is too short and too precious to ignore its fullness and its complexity.  It seems to me that we lose half the juice if we are not willing to admit that there are pieces of it that we don't understand, that don't make sense, that hurt like hell. 

Its not fair that my father should take such good care of his physical body and then - like that - be gone. We all miss him terribly, especially on birthdays and holidays when he would have had a new joke to tell us, laughing more than any of his listeners.

Its probably equally unfair that my dear sweet mother should still bless this planet with her generous and kind spirit, although I'm so grateful that she does.  And my heart hurts for her terror at her helplessness and for the ongoing dilemma around her living situation and her safety. If only her husband were still here. . .

My tiny speck of a mind cannot begin to fathom all the pieces and how they fit together.  Remind me of that when it sounds like I know what I’m talking about, perhaps even now. . .

Meanwhile. . .Happy Birthday Dad. 

Finding the clutch

I'm having one of those scratchy, sticky mornings.  It started yesterday when I began to discover all that I had set aside to have Christmas at my house, travel for New Year's, travel again with family, and then to come home and have a delightful play date with friends.  In order to focus on Christmas and houseguests and travel and more houseguests, I kept tucking away this pile and that, this errand and that one that could wait, temporarily.
Yesterday, as I checked in on check registers and bills, on the supply of dog food and groceries, a giant coffee and baking order also came in, with its own quick deadline.  That order got bigger with a supplemental email a couple of hours ago. At the same time, today and tomorrow hold appointments that were put on hold because of the snow and ice storm (remember that?) and all the travel and the houseguests. This was the week that could hold them, because from way back there, it was empty, unaware of the impending spill.
In the old days, all this would be fine, because it would serve to make me feel more important, busier.  I would wear the stress like a badge.  As I went through my day, I could tell everyone of my schedule.  I could hurry, make several lists.  In the old days, when I really got into it, I would have multiple lists.  And I could both check off and mark a line through each accomplishment, (that's embarrassing to admit!) emerging at the end of the day with a giant feeling of. . .what?  Having made it through, certainly.  Having survived it.  There was an inflated feeling, which is necessarily distant, but I didn't know that.  I mistook it for satisfaction, for happiness even.
Now, the challenge is different.  The challenge is not how much can I get done? It is how present am I to my life, to life itself? The tasks on the list(s) start out the same, although they may shift in priority, and as they do, they may fall off entirely.  But I still need to pay those bills that I put aside, make a bank deposit with checks people wrote for Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, pick up dog food at the vet's, go to the gym for a workout appointment.  Etcetera, and more etcetera.
This is where it gets crunchy, where I need deep breaths and more deep breaths, and just plain time outs.  The good and the bad news is that when I give up, and am willing to just be wherever I am, with whatever I'm doing, whatever it is goes more smoothly, and when I am finished, I have a sense of fulfillment that is far greater than simply crossing it off a list. It is kind of like I breathe into it, maybe even breathe with it. Maybe whatever it is - driving, searching the drug store for Plackers, roasting Costa Rican coffee - has its own rhythm.  Maybe it is about "synching" up - not sure that is the right word, or how to spell it - but it has to do with synchronizing my internal rhythm and the rhythm of the task, working together, breathing together, being present to it.
I don't know.  This is a lifelong re-education, I'm guessing.  Not letting the tasks, or the looming lists of tasks be in charge, not letting the self-created anxiety build and rob me of life itself, the awareness of it, the preciousness of it, of the gift that it is, right now.
Right here. . .right now. . .I'm breathing. . .life is breathing me. . .how remarkable. . .now, to allow this to stay open. . .

Waiting

There are women in several cities who will soon be on the last leg to my house: Davidson, Charlotte, Pinnacle, Concord. I've been looking forward to this for weeks, these women, these friends coming to my house for Art Camp, we are calling it.  None of us are artists, in fact, if you ask us, one by one, in a secluded room, we might each admit that we are a little afraid of "art", of the title, of the doing of it, of getting very close to "it."
That's the point, precisely.  Everybody is bringing food, with which they are comfortable, and wine, with which they are comfortable.  Chocolate is being imported, and multiple cheeses, and soup and salad and homemade breads and decadent cookies.  They are bringing their pillows, for gosh sakes, because they are all spending the night.  Oh, and popcorn, and a special popcorn pot that has served a dear friend's family for decades and has traveled multiple times to the beach when a permutation of this group goes, once or twice a year.
The house is about ready.  Beds are made with clean sheets, toilets are scrubbed.  There is a tablecloth on the kitchen table.  It is in the kitchen that we will spend most of our time, if it turns out like other gatherings.  There are Christmas decorations because it is only close to the end of January, not the actual end of January, and it is only when it gets to be a month late that I start to realize no one else still has Santa propped up in the living room. 
Its hard to be out of town, even overnight.  We've already had three people who couldn't come at the last minute.  One, who has just had surgery, and that on top of the recent promotion has her napping this weekend.  Another's mother was rushed to the hospital last night with shortness of breath, this, the woman into whom a heart stint was installed mere months ago.  And then there is my former Wake Forest neighbor, known for her huge heart, who is home instead of here, helping an abandoned Mama dog and all her many puppies, dumped only yesterday, precipitously, and heartlessly into this woman's front yard.
Life for the other four allows them this visit. For them, it isn't this weekend that the world opens one of its more jagged edges.  It happened to me the first time this playtime was scheduled.  All was arranged.  The menu was collectively derived, clothes were being washed to go into suitcases.  Then we got the call.  A dear dear man, friend and relative, had succumbed to esophageal cancer, after fighting year after year.  The services were the following weekend, the weekend of Art Camp.
So we collect this weekend.  And as I put candles in candle holders, and make sure that all the work spaces in the big room have enough light, as I wait for this glorious group of women to come in the door, one by one, with olives and cheeses and pillows and soup, floorcloths and cardstock and fabric and paint, I am so so grateful that life has opened up this space for us.
It is a space to color outside the lines, because it is too precious not to.  Life is outside the lines, in those spaces where we play when we can, and when it is time to tend to mothers and puppies and tired bodies, that we do that too, hopefully, out of this searing fullness.  And when we have it, we share it.  And when we don't have it, if we are lucky, we have a friend that does.
I didn't used to know this, either how to play, or how vital it is.  I used to think that work was the only holder of merit, that the more difficult something was, the more points it bestowed.  Needless to say, that attitude didn't leave much room for floorcloths and paint and pillows and friends making the time to come and take a risk. . .

Tahoe in the morning. . .

Tahoe in the evening. . .