Heart Happy (cathy_edgett) wrote,
Heart Happy
cathy_edgett

Morning thoughts -



I went to have blood taken yesterday morning and there was quite a wait.  The computers were still struggling after the storm, and so, everyone understood and was patient.  Usually, there is a bit of anxiety, foot-tapping and looking at watches, because most of the people have been fasting and no one has had their morning coffee, but, yesterday, everyone was calm.  I think we slowed in the storm. 

As I adjust back to having power in the house,  I feel like I did after I finished treatment.  Nothing was expected of me when I was in chemotherapy.  If I rose and brushed my teeth, people cheered.  A walk was like winning the Olympics.   I was present with each step.   Then, treatment ended and I was dropped off the conveyor belt.  I was back to choices.   While in treatment, there was no anxiety around choice or accomplishment.   I did what I had energy to do and I did it well.   I slept when I was tired and ate when I was hungry.   How simple is that.  It is the enlightenment path.   That is why most who have been through chemotherapy consider it a gift.

Now, I am again back to choice after a break.   My power is on, and a piece of me misses a day where watching and tending a fire is considered "enough."    Now, people would look at me askance, if they asked what I did today, and I said I sat and watched and tended a fire.  Now, I expect, and the world expects with me, and that is a good thing, obviously, and yet I think we each need to program into our calendars, days of rest.

Here are my morning ramblings of yesterday and today.



January 8, 2008

 

I used to feel safe inside,

Invulnerable

Now I know a house can blow down

or burn or swim, float like cardboard

until it melts

into the sea.

Acknowledging that opens something in me.

I bring inside out and treat it to tea. 

 

 

January 9, 2008

 

Discombobulated after the storm

 

When the power is out in a winter storm,

there is only so much one can do.

There is the fire, the candles, and blankets

piled high

on the bed.

The time of light is short and even at its peak,

gray.

It is easy though to do the next necessary thing.

One can only see so far, so well.

It is harder now with the lights a glare,

and the heat shuttling through the vents,

to choose

among the array of books, files, and piles.

 

C.S. Lewis wrote:

 

          Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them – never become even conscious of them all.  How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?

 

Perhaps that explains why I dwell right now

 like a fish by the shore

considering how to bring forth stubs

to stretch into legs.

I struggle with land and sea, juggle the elements of earth, water, fire, and air. 

I understand why we knock on wood.

It is a ceremony to go out to our trees and request, no beg, they stand another year,

offer shade and life and homes.  We dwell with their roots,

both vulnerable and safe, amphibians offered a chance to climb

and dare.


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