Life surely is hard. I wonder how any of us can survive it, but we do. There is no choice. I had given myself permission to check out for awhile. There was no other choice. Now it is time to check back in. I am starting my days with my qigong practice of 18 movements. It begins with a sunrise and ends with a sunset. The in-between movements can be done in any order. I like to keep the same order as it is easier to remember.
It’s only five and a half weeks since my mother’s passing. She left on a warm October day. Her flowerbeds were still blooming with marigolds, petunias and snapdragons. She saw the sunrise and the sunset. She left in the evening, well before midnight. She was always thoughtful in that way, not wanting to cause us too much trouble.
I have not had much time to process her leaving. There was so much to do. There was my father’s grief and health to tend to. Then there was mine. You can’t get out of Dodge very fast or easily, especially when you are not Wyatt Earp with a speedy horse. So we’ve limped along slowly but surely. I think we are out of the danger zone into recovery now. One slow day at a time.
Do you know how much time you scroll on your phone? I don’t know for sure but it’s probably alot. The thing is knowing and trying to cut down makes it worse. It’s an addiction, like:
Sucking your thumb for comfort.
Kids wanting to press any button they see.
Lighting another cigarette before you do anything.
Having another cup of tea when you don’t know what else to do.
What I know is that I am uncomfortable in the moment and scrolling is an escape. I’ve outgrown sucking my thumb. I still press some buttons. I was able to give up cigarettes because of health reasons. I’ve cut down my tea consumption because of too many trips to the bathroom. The scrolling thing seems harmless enough and resulted in much sought information. But then I realize my attention span has dwindled to that of a gnat’s. Then there’s the memory. You say who needs it when there’s Google. True but I’m starting to feel somewhat robotic like. My emotions and thinking becoming muted. I’m like a deer in headlight, blinking, unthinking, not knowing what to do next.
Do you know how much of yourself you can lose to others whether it’s family, spouse, lover, friend or foe? You compromise, you turn a blind eye, you stay silent – giving up pieces of yourself to get along, to be nice, to be kind, to be…..I didn’t know until periods of depression, downtime, aloneness, stillness. In those moments of being the deer in headlight, I am faced with ‘I don’t know who I am‘. I am the stranger at the door in Derek Walcott’s Poem, Love After Love.
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
How am I to recover myself? What they tell me to do is to replace an unhealthy habit with a healthier one. So here I am, showing up more in this space, digging deep, trying to coax out the words I once love so much. It is hard work, being here. Being somewhere else is preferable. I made an escape to the garden and greenhouse. Then I had a snack. Now I am back with a cup of bitter melon tea to do the work.
I think I am uncomfortable with the emptiness of spaciousness. Hence all my clutter. It’s not that I am a hoarder. It’s not that my house is jammed full of stuff. I have pockets of stuff here and there. My desk, diningroom table, sewing table, coffee tables…There’s a common theme here. Tables! Things do not get thrown out or put away. I have an inability of finishing tasks. They are sitting out, waiting for me to come back. It is the same way with a trip. I love the tripping but I don’t want to get to the end. It’s when I get there, what will I do? That is the discomfort, the emptiness, the unknown. Then the unknown is forced upon me because a trip does end.
How silly is that fear and whence did it come? There are no answers to some questions so I shall not waste time mulling it over. I let the feeling come and work through it. Now when I start something, I try to finish it in a reasonable timeline. I work on it with simple tasks. When the dishes are done, I dry and put them away. I hang up the laundry after it is finished. When it is dried, I take them down, fold and put them away. I haven’t made great strides but I do feel a change. It took a lot of effort at first. The inclination to leave things for ‘later’ was so strong. It’s much easier than. There’s almost a pleasure in completing a job and doing it well.
I have the same aversion to ’empty time’, too. It is uncomfortable/strange to do nothing. I am always doing something, reading, writing, drawing, cooking…..It’s not that I can do nothing now. I just do fewer things. I do things slower. I make more time for slow walks, slow baths, sleeping in a bit. I’m getting back to more how I used to be. I used to be able to sit, sip tea and just listen to CBC radio and do nothing else. There was time for my brain to rest. There was time for me to feel the pleasure of just being. Now I am almost afraid of empty time and spaciousness. It is time for recovery and retrieval.
First things first. Good morning and Happy New Year everyone. May our creativity and words flourish and flow for this first month and the rest of the year. I am embarking on the Ultimate Blog Challenge for January 2020. I’m showing up each day of the month with all my sighs and mumblings. I have been away from here, my sit and think place for too long. I have been lost in a dark and joyless place for a little while. My keyboard and words are tools of recovery and navigating the stairway to the light.
The Chinese have a custom of not talking about bad things on New Year Day and other special occasions. It might bring bad luck. We are a superstitious culture. The world can be such a dark place and I have chosen ACCEPT for my word for the year. It is time to push superstition aside and speak of the truth as it is. That is what acceptance is – to embrace what is here and true now. The truth is my heart has been in a hard and barren place. The holiday season had no meaning for me.
That truth is difficult to declare. It’s like blasphemy. In my mind, I’m putting my arms up in defence of being stoned by the masses. But when the meanings are gone, how can I pretend otherwise? Losing meaning wasn’t my choice. It’s what came with the changing tides. There was no pushing them back. The darkness seemed to have exploded into the light of world. They can no longer be hidden, contained and ignored.
Having lost those old sentiments and beliefs that used to sustained me, I must let go and not cling to things that no longer work. I must go forth into this brave new world and find the truths that will work. The happiest moments I have are the ones from my childhood on New Year’s Eve. I’m warm and snug in my bed made of wood planks softened by a quilt. I’m safe and secure while my mother, grandmother and ‘aunties’ are tending the fire with wood and straw in the night. They are making Chinese desserts for the next day. That warmth and sense of security and belonging I felt back then are what I want back.
This month of the Ultimate Blog Challenge is my journey to recover my heart and soul. I’m going to tap my way up the Stairway to Heaven.
Eleven more days till the end of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I haven’t fallen off the wagon though there are days. It would not be such a terrible thing if I do if there is a good reason. It would be if it’s due to lack of motivation and conviction. I have adopted this mantra from Regina Brett’s 50 life lessions in God Never Blinks. Lesson 46 –No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. This is one of my ways of showing up.
I was wrong in my self assessment. I am not a hoarder. I do use what I’ve gathered over time. Life is a long journey. Learning never ends. My ears are always open for tidbits of wisdom, however they come. This morning I caught a bit of Shauna Niequest’s interview with Oprah on Super Soul Sunday. It was on her new book, Present Over Perfect. I have not read it so I can’t give an opinion. One thing she said caught my ear though. “Listen to your own life.” I took her advice because the more she talked, the more she lost me. She rambled on and on about how much she had and how busy she was. She smacked of privilege. I agreed with many of the readers on Goodsreads who gave her a one star.
The one thing she said was worth the listen. Do listen to your own life. I’ve already heard the message when I looking at my spruce trees in the winter light of the morning. I saw how magestic they were, the top reaching higher than the windows, the snow resting on top of the branches. The Buddhas sitting peacefully at their base out of the wind. How beautiful it all is, the winter, the cold and the snow. I can see the slowness and restfulness of it all. It’s the season of rest, recovery and restoration for the body and spirit. There is no need to hustle and bustle. There is no need to escape, to haul ass and snowbird to the south – for me.
onethousandandtwo 