Believe It Or Not

This is what I learned today:

That a vacation really can be what you need.

I was driving to town in the dense fog about to take my mother to the eye doctor this morning and I did not feel anxious. I didn't feel crazy. I just felt like, oh, here I am, driving to town to take my mother to the eye doctor.
Like, you know- a semi-normal person?

I remember when we first got to our hotel in Mexico and were sitting outside, waiting for our room to be ready and I was staring at that water. I remember the next morning, doing the same thing. Just...sitting and staring. And I could actually feel my neurons being smoothed, the pathways untwisting themselves and relaxing. I could feel my soul quiet as I listened to the water shushing in the rocks.
And as silly as it is, that Just Be! in the pool at the hotel really was a very, very fine message, one that I keep flashing back to, just as I keep flashing back to the feeling of being by the water, being still, being open to it all, just, in fact, being.

I don't know how long it will last, but for now, I am so grateful for it.

I felt so good in Mexico. I ate things I never eat (corn with mayonnaise?), I drank rum and coke and margaritas, and orange and grapefruit sodas. I didn't eat many vegetables except the ones in pico de gallo. I ate bananas and papaya and watermelon and cantaloupe every morning. Also bacon. I slept a lot. I walked, I snorkeled, I made love, I laughed.
My stomach was fine. My joints didn't hurt. My back didn't hurt. I didn't have to rush for anything. It gave my body and my soul time to realign themselves. My heart filled up, the space which is normally taken up by fear and anxiety and pain freed for all the beauty and love I saw and felt.

It was blessing after blessing.

My mother's appointment went fine. She has been getting injections in her eye for macular degeneration for years and they have been very successful but after the one she got on Wednesday, her eye swelled up and gooked a bunch. When I took her in today, they reminded her that the doctor told her he had hit a small blood vessel and so it had been expected that things would not go as well afterwards as usual, but she had forgotten.
Oh, bless her heart.
She forgets.
The doctor she goes to is excellent. He is from South Africa and is quite black and the entire office is staffed by African-Americans and my mother is quite un-prejudiced and prides herself on that which is something for a woman raised in the south back in the old days. BUT, this does not mean she is color-blind. She kept saying things like, "Now see, one of my tablemates would think that this was awful, being in an office with all these people."
All these people?
And this one- "I'm the only one here like me."
Uh- you mean...white?
(She wasn't.)
And then when a woman of heft and weight walked up to the desk and Mother opened her mouth to say...oh god- WHAT!? I quickly babbled on about something. Anything. Please do not let her say something about that woman's weight five feet away from her.
Well. What you gonna do?

Despite all of that, she managed to direct me to the doctor's office, which was good as I would have been driving around for hours trying to find it. I obviously NEED that app that has a lady's voice to GPS me. "Now, turn right." etc. But Mother knew how to get there. She did.

So it was all fine and the doctor told her that her eye would be okay and to keep taking her drops and Mother was so grateful that I took her and it went well.

And then I dropped by Lily and Jason's house and got to see my grandson and I dropped off things at Goodwill that have been in my car forever and I went to the library and the grocery store and I came home and unloaded everything and ran some more laundry and ate my lunch and fell out. Just fell the fuck out. It all caught up with me and I went and laid down and slept like the dead and woke up and mopped the hallway and talked to Jessie and figured out my iPhone internet problem and did more laundry and started supper and here I am.

Here I am.

Neurons still smoothed. Feeling absolutely fine.

Lord, call Ripley's.

A vacation that worked. As dear Syd says, the Geographical Cure. Sometimes it works.

And my laundry is finally and at last, almost done. And my husband is home and it is Friday night and I am making clam spaghetti and focaccia with tomatoes and peppers and onions and mushrooms and I can sleep tomorrow as long as I want and today almost felt like spring and my broccoli is heading up in the garden.

Just Be.

Try it.

Love...Ms. Moon