Tuesday, January 5, 2010

It's All In Our Minds


My eyes are watering. No. That's a lie. They are seeping sadness. I am at a place that is not a good place. Aren't you tired of hearing about all of this?

I'm tired. For no reason. I slept very well last night burrowed down in weights of covers, cold air slipping through the cracked window to cool me when I had a hot flash so that they did not last so long. But I'm just weary. Weary of myself and this mind that tells me repeatedly that there is really no sense to any of it. I open the paper and a German woman has killed her grandchild on St. George Island, a place I went to for healing several summers. Killed her grandchild? I close the paper. Perhaps the doctor visit wore me out, even though it took approximately ten minutes and there was nothing at all for the doctor to be suspicious about. He took his little can of freezy stuff and left after he looked at me while lecturing the entire time on the ABCDE's of skin cancer.
It's good that he gets this information across but I swear to God I want to smack the holy living shit out of him after he says the same thing for about the fifteenth time, me standing there, clutching the gown around me to preserve some semblance of modesty although the bull done left the barn on that one after all the places he'd looked. He did tell me I have a fine head of hair. At my age, I'll take that as a compliment.

When he left, I asked his assistant if she doesn't go insane, listening to this speech over and over and over again, all day long, five days a week.
"I just zone it out," she said. "I have to."

So the doctor and the holidays which, although they were not so bad this year, really, they weren't, they have worn me out too. Even my house, which is my place of peace, is not giving me solice. I look around and see dirt and clutter. I open a drawer, a cabinet and I think, I should clean this up, but I don't have the energy, I shut it back but can still feel the chaos in there, even though I cannot see it.

Outside, everything is brown and dead and dying. Even the camellias are dying on the bushes. Their bright colors turning brown, brown, brown. I hate brown. Anyone who paints a house brown is suspect in my book.

Winter. It's just winter. The season of no-hope. I know, intellectually, that things will change. That buds will open, the azaleas will blossom, the tiny violets will cover the yard with white and purple, the dogwoods will make snow of the flowers in their limbs. I know all of that.
I know that Miss Allegra will get through her chemo and will find her strength and health and joy again. But today, she is in hell and that makes me sad, so sad. I think of all the suffering in this world and it bears down upon my chest like a heavy weight.

Well. Owen is coming tomorrow. He is everything- promise and reality of joy now. Life can be hard. It usually is, truthfully. We keep traveling. What else can we do? My chickens cluck and bawk and lay me eggs, still, even when it is so cold. They, too, are promise.

And so I write myself into hope. Words can promise, fingers type out the ones that tell the story of now and of tomorrow. Perhaps.

I suppose this is why people who have religion are, at heart, happier than those who do not. They can put their focus on the glories which have been promised, or at least believe there is a reason for suffering.

Not for me. No, not for me. I can only hold the thought of my grandson in front of my heart like a carrot on a stick, also the azaleas and the dogwoods and the tiny perfect violets and go collect the eggs and look up into the clear winter sky and see the remnants of the blue moon we celebrated, knowing it will fill and fatten again, that moon.

And tomorrow will be different. Hell, in an hour things will be different. Change is inevitable.

It's okay to leak the heart's sadness through tears. It's okay to be sad for someone we know is suffering. It's okay to close the paper. It's okay to think of eggs and sassy chickens.

It's okay to go on. It's what we do. We humans.

Bless our hearts. Yours, mine, bless us all on this cold winter morning when we have to remember that yes, there is suffering but joy can be found if we turn our mind to that. That's what my fingers have typed. I must believe it.

24 comments:

  1. Oh sweet Ms. Moon.
    Yesterday was one of those days for me. I'm still bogged down in holiday comings and goings, my daughter returned to campus to find her and a few others were robbed, another found out her best friends father has inoperable cancer... and on and on.
    So I went to the lake in the middle of a snow storm . To look at creation. Because there has to be a reason other than what I make up in my head. I took pictures of swans and ducks and geese. And I thought of your chickens. Really.
    You're words helped me , right there at the edge of my fears that grip so hard I can't move forward sometimes. All the what if of every day.
    Sorry for the rambling... I hope the typing helped enough for today, that's all we get sometimes, just the hope.

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  2. Deb- You were SO wise to go look at the lake. We all need to do that- get out and be in wonder at the things which are all right there for us to see if only we will look for them. There is so little we can control but we CAN look for the beauty we know is there. We can.

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  3. I so feel ya. You know I do.

    And do not minimize the emotional toll that even a short doctor's visit can take. Here's to hoping today's a better day!

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  4. Good morning!

    I'm so glad you can bring to mind the fresh spring growth and colour even in winter's grip... That your mind alone can find that future joy and beauty is proof that there is hope and love and life. We can think and imagine and write, what a dear blessing that is, yes? Yes! And yes once more...

    For me hope this morning is this dark rich coffee with milk that gets me more charged up as I start more month-end tasks. And hope this morning is my wife, at home cooking and reading and being a thoughful and happy girl.

    Bless your heart this fine winter's morning, Ms. Moon!
    Mary

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  5. I dont think that every believer is happier at heart; maybe it is because I believe in God, but also feel keenly the loss and grief and pain that is part of life, and sorry, promises of heaven or what the fuck EVER do absolutely nothing to make life here on earth any easier. I just think it is life. We live the best we can, we feel however we feel, and then we maybe feel something better-a whisper of hope, a sweet smile, a small slice of joy, and it is sometimes just enough to keep us moving forward. And then we die, and rot in the ground, and who the fuck knows what happens after that? I don't. I know that life is hard, and you are so sad, and it is okay because it just IS. And I would hug you or make soup or just hold your hand if I could, so close your eyes and feel that I am. And I know, it doesn't help one. fucking.bit.

    but-a good head of hair and great legs will take you far. :)

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  6. NEVER read the paper.

    Huggaz, as a sweet lady wrtote to me the other day, and made me smile.

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  7. It's amazing how much better getting over a cold can make you feel about damn near everything.

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  8. What a horrible story in the paper. That's enough to make anyone want to bury their head under a pillow. I'm thinking of you.

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  9. What a horrible story in the paper. That's enough to make anyone want to bury their head under a pillow. I'm thinking of you.

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  10. Yeah. Thank you for a moment of contemplation. I am touched by Kori's comment, and say ditto. Life is. Which includes pain-filled moments and everything in-between to the sacred. Filled with this life, we are sensitive to the suffering around us: this does not mean (though it can, as well!) that we ARE the suffering. Your tears of sorrow are a wet example of compassion and healing, which we all share.

    Bless your heart. Yes. Blessings.
    xoxo

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  11. Bless your heart, Ms. Moon. It is that fucking bastard of a winter. It comes every year and yet it surprises us.

    I was hiding in my bed last night and there was an advert for a TV recap of the past year. They had named it "The Year of Fear." This could have pushed me over the edge, but I switched it off. You should leave the paper for a while. It's that bloody winter.

    x

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  12. Lucky for me the sky is very blue today, and I can look out my windows and breathe. Sometimes I think surrounding myself with color is my drug of choice. Somehow it helps.

    And tears are cleansing.

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  13. Tears, fingers, ears. We need tears to cleanse, fingers to type it out, and ears to listen and to hear.

    I hope that my listening helps ease your pain a bit.

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  14. I have been in a very cold and dark place since the beginning of this new year. I am trying to get my light back. I miss it. I am tired of being sad. And tired of being cold!

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  15. keep writing it out. This crazy world is a puzzle to chew your pencil over.

    Whenever I hear about those awful stories of adults killing their kids all I can think is how utterly awful and despairing their lives had been to have chosen to go that route. Like cats who will kill their kittens when they find themselves at a major level of stress/craziness/scarcity.

    Humans have to dig deep to find hope be it in fiction, nature or beautiful grandkids....

    Change is a comin'

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  16. Love to you, Ms. Moon. Winters are so awful and grey.

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  17. Nola- And it didn't even take a day. Thank-you, baby.

    Mary- Oh. What a nice wife YOU are. Thank-you.

    Kori- You are a real believer. I love that in you. You don't look to a God to solve all your problems or explain everything. You help yourself. And you help me. And so many others. Thank-you.

    Jo- I know. I should not read the paper.

    DTG- Well, I still don't want a cold. But I am glad you're so much better.

    Nicol- Thanks, sugar.

    Swallowtail- And blessings to YOU!

    Mwa- Isn't it ALWAYS the Year of Fear? Jesus.
    Yes. Turn that shit OFF!

    Michelle- Color is wonderful. I changed my desktop picture to a beautiful photo of a bright red zinnia Jessie took a few summers ago. My mood immediately lightened.

    Nancy C- It does. Thank-you.

    Ms. Dish- Cold. Sad. Maybe we should all take up snowshoeing. Oh wait- we have no snow. Just cold. So we nap and we wait and we go on.

    Geeks In Rome- I know. I KNOW! Anyone capable of harming a child is very, very ill. And yes, change will (and does and has) come.

    Ginger- At least ours isn't gray. At least today.

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  18. dark days....long dark nights...short gray days...and long dark nights with the cold. After years and years of experience we know it's coming, brace ourselves for it, but are still stunned stupid by it.
    Isn't it interesting that the major civilizations have thrived in the north? How can that be? It certainly isn't always warmer at work in any way...atmosphere, temperature, temperaments.
    Sending a hug anyway-
    xoxo Charlie

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  19. Charlie- Well. You know- there's Egypt and Rome and Greece. And the civilizations of the Maya and Aztec and so forth. It's not always the North which spawns greatness. But somehow, I do think the Northern civilizations are more peaceful.

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  20. Sending some healing energy to Miss Allegra. I love reading her comments here. So wise and soulful and sweet. No wonder you're feeling so sad.

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  21. We all have these days Ms. Moon. I'll send healing thoughts your way.

    Today as I drove to work all I could think was how much I miss green. All the gray bleakness of this landscape is taking it's toll on me too.

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  22. Bless your heart, Ms. Moon. Loves you.

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  23. Ms. Moon,
    I am SO SORRY you had the damn SADS again.

    You are damn right about it being okay not to open the paper. The news depresses hell out of me.

    Love you TONS,

    SB

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  24. Ms. Moon for that reason alone I gave up my TV years ago. There's so much sadness in the world, so much suffering, so much cruelty, and so much unfairness. But there's also joy, and that's what I cling to. Hoping that today is a better day for you.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.