Tuesday, August 26, 2014

A Morning Report

Another beautiful day here, maybe not exactly crisp but at least not sodden with so much humidity that the air presses down on you with unrelenting steamy pressure. Change is good but I'm not dealing well with it right now. I can feel the slow rise of anxiety coming upon me. The vague and indeterminate pains, first here, now there which seem to foretell suffering and death. The constant burr of worry under the saddle of my brain. The feeling that I should be doing something, something...what? That I should be doing more, loving more, making more of what I have. The paralysis which keeps me from doing anything, almost.
Almost.
I did text my sweet friend Melissa this morning to ask if she could rid me of some hair. Two-thirty she had open. I will be there.
I took a walk. A good one. Step, step, choose your step through sand, through grass, down path, through woods, through the shade and the sun, push on, push on, push on and just keep going.
I can do that. Push myself until I am sweat-soaked, my feet are on automatic, I don't feel any of it, just the occasional hip pain when it spikes.
Not really feeling it.

I want to flay myself open to wrap more fully around the ones I love. Does this make sense?
No. To make of myself a skin, a barrier to all pain and suffering.
Not possible.

A little too dramatic.

Not very practical, either.

Perhaps it's all just the slight sweet change in the air. The reminder that time is passing. Oh! How it passes! Again and again, the seasons change and change again and it becomes a whirl and you can believe truly and really that the earth is spinning and traveling and hurtling through space and we with it and our lives, so short, and when this depression/anxiety/what-the-fuckedness comes upon me I remember all the good, the happy, the fabulous, the joy as well as the hard, hard, hard, and why does it feel as if only the hard is left? That I have eaten every bit of the sweet and only the bitter husk remains but of course that is not true, not true at all and depression and anxiety and what-the-fuckedness are liars, they lie. What do liars do? They lie. 

Lily asked me the other day if it was weird not having the dogs here.
"No," I said. "It feels normal now. Like all those years of having them was weird."
True.
I don't miss them one bit. I can leave doors open all over the house without worrying that they'll find their way into distant rooms and won't be able to get out and will pee and shit in them. Leave the gates open so that the chickens can come and weed the back yard fifteen feet from where I sit.


They make their way into this space cautiously, Elvis keeping good watch, Trixie sings her pretty little song.


A crooning three-notes which are hers and hers alone. She no more sings it for me than she sings it for any of us. She sings it for herself but I am the recipient of the sweetness of it. As I am the recipient of Maurice's tolerance as she allows me to pet her head in the night when my husband sleeps beside me and only we two, cat and human, are awake to think in the night. 

I am the recipient of so much sweetness. So much of it pure blessing, undeserved and even unasked for. Who in this would would think to ask for the sweet soothing song of a hen as she scratches in the fire spike behind the porch? And I certainly never asked for the cat who showed up, drawn by what? Light? Laughter? The smell of venison cooking, most likely. 

And those dogs, they were not part of any of this and I served them as best I could but always out of duty, never love, and no, I do not miss them but even as I say that, I know that their passing was part of change and change is so hard for me, even the good, grandest kind, even the so very subtle announcement of the changing of the season and perhaps as we grow older, each return to this season, to that, brings back this time of year for all of the years and the weight of all that which has happened grows so heavy upon the soul sometimes. 

Well. These are the thoughts and the feelings in my heart this morning. It'll all be okay and I'm glad I'm going to go see Melissa. You have to walk through a cupcake bakery to get to her little salon and what could be more cheering (besides seeing Melissa herself) than to walk through a space with the smells of sugar and almonds and vanilla and chocolate and all good things, so very nice and delicious you don't even have to taste them to enjoy them and also the sight of them, such perky little edible works of art?

Yes. It will all be okay and even as I feel it may not, I have these moments, right here, which are far better than okay and I am as cognizant of that truth as I am aware of the illusion of sadness. 
Or perhaps, as the Buddhists say, it is ALL illusion. 

Well. There is illusion and there is delusion. 

I will try to balance them out. I will try to realize the difference. 

Much love...Ms. Moon








10 comments:

  1. I bet the chickens love getting a shot at the dog yard.

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  2. Anxiety has been nudging me of late. Sometimes I sit with it, sometimes I try to push it away. (It never allows me to push it away.) I also wonder if it is the changing for the seasons.

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  3. Change is always hard, which might be why I get melancholy with every new season and maybe you, too. Sit with it, dear heart, and just let it be, and know that you are surrounded by love, even from people you have never met in the flesh, but whose hearts know your heart, and who will love you through all the changing seasons, and will sit with you, here.

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  4. I always feel sad as summer ends, even as hot as it is. I hate to know winter is on the way. It's a good thing I don't live up north. Gail

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  5. There is always joy to be found...follow the cupcakes!

    Post pics of the new do, please!

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  6. Time is running now. I love fall with all of it's beauty, but I also dread the years that go by. Nothing to do but hang on for the ride.

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  7. Beautiful words as always.

    Adam has always wanted chickens but I've put it off. Slowly you're convincing me!

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  8. I think you did well to put up with those dogs as long as you did. Incontinence is the line which shall not be crossed, as far as I'm concerned.

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  9. I would like to walk through a cupcake bakery to anywhere. xoxox

    P.S. You are so wise and honest re the dogs. xoxox

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  10. Mr. Downtown- Oh, they do!

    ditchingthedog- Birdie- I am so sorry to hear this! No, it can't be pushed away and I've never yet learn to just sit with it. May there be peace.

    Angella- That does help. So much. Thank you.

    Gail- It's a good thing I don't live up north either. I couldn't take the cold.

    heartinhand- Ah, it's just me with a tiny bit shorter hair.

    Syd- It is so true. Nothing else we can do.

    Wayne- They make me so happy. I wonder if they would do the same for you...

    Steve Reed- And they crossed it so many hundreds of times.

    Denise- I don't know how wise I am but I at least can be honest about THAT.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.