Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Kindly Low

 

It's just been one of those days although I have not been unaware or unappreciative of what I have found around me.
I did go for a walk, not through the woods and fields to the horse farm and back, but merely down the sidewalk to the county line and on a tangent or two down dirt lanes to see what I could see. The picture above was actually taken from just beside the sidewalk as the road crosses over a little tiny creeklet. The wisteria was growing over it and that green smudge you see on the right in the back is a bed of newfurled ferns, still with their tender baby color.
I never in a million years would have seen all of that from the car window.

I saw clothes hanging on lines including an apron I lusted after. I saw a Spanish bayonet growing in what must have been an abandoned house site and at another clearing I saw a huge azalea in full fuchsia bloom which surely grew right beside someone's house, no longer there. Could have been a trailer.
Saw a church with a sign out front that said, "Know God, Know Love. No God, No Love."

I picked roadside flowers, a grubby little handful, and brought them home.


I went and got gas, went to the library, went to Publix where I was so spacey that I almost ran directly into my neighbor. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm in my own little world."
I'd been standing in front of the tortillas trying to decide which kind to get and it was killing me. First, flour or corn? I wanted flour today. Whole wheat or white? Low carb or regular? Large or huge? Handmade style or machine-made style? Organic or non? High fiber or normal fiber? Let's not even mention the eighteen different brands displayed there. 
Jesus Mary and Joseph. 
It's hard enough to make these decisions when I'm feeling almost normal but when I have the anxiety it's agony. 

Well. So what? First world problems of the absolutely insignificant degree. 

I'm listening to Lee Smith's Dimestore and in it she talks about her daddy's bipolar disease and how he referred to the depression part as feeling "kindly low." Every time it happened again and he had to be hospitalized, he would say, "I can't believe I let this happen again." Not even realizing it was an illness, he felt such guilt for "allowing" it to happen. 

And you know, I understand that. I do not have bi-polar disease, for which I am incredibly grateful, and I have never had to be hospitalized for the issues I do struggle with, but I certainly understand the guilt of "letting this happen."

And I'll be fine. I'll probably be much better tomorrow. 

May all be well with you. 

Love...Ms. Moon




15 comments:

  1. We carry so much as ours that is outside of our control, son't we? I see it in myself, and others... Bless us all, dear spirits and ancestors.

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    1. Yes. Exactly. And I wonder why we think it's ours to carry?

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  2. religion loves guilt doesn't it? and even if you aren't religious it's impossible to escape the indoctrination growing up in this society. I'm glad it was only kindly low instead of meanly low.

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    1. Haha! Too true. I used to work with a woman who used the word "kindly" in that way. I'd never heard it before.

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  3. "Kindly low." I love that term, though of course you don't need me to tell you that guilt need not be involved. I wonder why we often feel responsible for things that we're NOT responsible for?! Perhaps it comes with having so much control over other aspects of our lives (nutrition, health, homes, educations, careers -- none of which our prehistoric ancestors controlled very well, if at all). Our genes have not caught up with our social progress.

    I hate the ridiculous quantity of stuff on offer in American stores. Seriously, choice taken to the absurd MAX.

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    1. I agree with all of that, Steve. We definitely haven't evolved to the point which technology and social progress has. Or, hell, just about anything. Which is part of the problem with all of the choices- how many choices do you suppose our foremothers had when it came time to fix a meal?

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  4. Kindly low. Thank you for that phrase. It has such a gentle aspect to it, as if we can manage to sit with the lows, and let them be until they pass. This is my goal, to be kind to myself in my low periods, to not berate myself for all I perceive I am lacking, most of which I cannot control anyway. And Steve, I chuckled at your comment because the things you mentioned that we have control over, feel completely out of control to me. Therein lies a clue to what ails me I suppose. As always, I am grateful for the community conversation here, and for my lovely friends in this space. It does make everything feel a little kinder.

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    1. And part of the problem is that we are told we DO have control over all of those things. And yet, for some of us, that is too intimidating to contemplate.
      Ay-yi.
      Maybe it's my cavewoman brain that fights going to the doctor. It tells me that what will be will be. My fate is my fate. Fuck getting bloodwork! Etc.
      Oh, perhaps I'm just crazy. Or, kindly crazy at least.

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  5. By the way, Mary, my mother gave me a set of those same crocheted doilies as you have under your vase.

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    1. You know, I'm not even sure where I got my doilies. I have quite a few. I've just picked them up here and there, I think. I love them!

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  6. Hugs can travel through infinity at lightening speed and I just sent you some. Thanks for the hard work of giving me this blog to read and thank you so much for the Wisteria picture. It is perhaps my favorite gift of nature.

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    1. Oh, that was so sweet! Thank you! My pleasure, of course. And thank you for the hugs. There will be more wisteria pictures. I promise.

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  7. When it comes to depression I have such compassion for everyone else. It's a disease that you have no control over. But when it comes to myself I am self-loathing, harsh and unforgiving. Maybe that's part of depression itself.

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    1. I think you are right. It is part of the depression itself. And I completely understand what you're saying. When I do start to feel some compassion for myself, I immediately feel guilty for THAT!
      So crazy.

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  8. I know what you mean about decision making.

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