You can listen to this song, sing the words a 100 times, yet never really hear it. Well at least I had done just that. Then this year went into a tailspin. It was an ah ha moment when I saw love actively being lived all around me. It was actions big and small. The love around me wasn't spoken, it was kinetic. People were with me 24- SEVEN, looking out for me when I was not present. I have a month of my life that is known to me only by their words. They fought the battles, they held my hand, kept my dog, watered my plants, helped me stand, bathed me, eventually took me home, took me to the grocery, to doctor after doctor, and brought the world in to me for the weeks I was homebound.
Love is a verb, it ain't a thing. I needed all the verbs you can name. It was a hug, a phone call, a shoulder to cry on, an arm to lean on. My friends, my family all showed me, love ain't a thing, love is a verb.
So I think I will ponder a while...is the love I give a thing ........or a verb?
Sunday Morning Coming Down - Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson
Well first I love this song, but it isn't Sunday morning coming down the way I like it. I am a morning person. I am not hung over or lonely. I like to wake up, have a cup of coffee, listen to some music and just love the possibilities of a day yet to be lived. Sunday mornings are best. It seems that on Saturday I am still in a grind mode. There are things to be done and you're still a little shell-shocked from the work week. Saturday you dis-engage from labor. On Sunday, you re-engage yourself. By Sunday I am ready to just meander quietly in spirit. But I don't usually get a Sunday morning
I spend Saturday night away from home. I wake up in a different bed on Sunday mornings. It is at the home of another and they sleep late and the house is small. So I usually just lay in bed and read or do computer work. Ahhh but thanks to a change of in routine, I got to wake up in my own home, with my guest in a back bedroom and me able to just meander. I sat in my chair and watched a movie, while I enjoyed the most delicious cup of Vietnamese coffee and a bit of blackberry cobbler. I listened to music on my I pad/ portable speaker in the sun. I cooked dinner in my fire pit. I wrote some letters. It was a divine morning. The first Sunday morning I have had at home in a couple of years.
I treasured it. I have decided to see that I get a few more Sunday mornings at home. Funny how such ordinary things can be so defining. I felt like I woke up a bit today. I realized I had given away something I love. Sunday mornings have a purpose for me. Today, I made the decision to make more Sunday mornings come down my way. Thank you 2014 for my first gift.
I feel nostalgic tonight. I am not sure why the past is on my mind but it is. Not a melancholy sort of thing, but a question really. I find myself wondering tonight why I didn't notice important events. Why when you live life do you miss the big, little moments?
My children are grown, not a part of my daily life for years. I wonder how did the last time I packed a diaper bag go un-noticed. When did I last tie a shoe for them. With our roles reversed this summer as they cared for me, I realized for the first time ever, I was not the leader. It occurs to me that I let go of little pieces of my leadership role one piece at a time...yet I don't remember doing it. When did I rock them each last? In that moment that I didn't conceive .... did I appreciate what I was about to give up? I mean was I connected or was I worried about dinner.
So it makes me ask myself today...what might I regret not noticing in my life currently? I am going to think about that!
The first line in this song describes my life. "Sailing hardships through broken harbors out on the waves in the night" I am still trying to make my way back from 5 weeks in ICU with a ventilator stent thrown in for good measure. To be honest I have done well. It has been a slow steady progression back to normal. No real one step forward, half a step back sorta thing. I am in my 4th month of healing and most things are working well...except my energy level sucks.
This is starting to sound like a terrible post...but be patient. You can't join the celebration if you don't know the climb.
So my energy level sucks. I am used to being able to pull anything out of my ass. Little sleep, no big deal, I will sleep later. House needs cleaning...I will sleep a couple of hours and get up at 2 am and do it. Let me get up and go hike with my club 8-10 miles then go out with Superman for a late date. Hey life is short live it. Well that sounded good, always worked before. Why change horses in mid-stream?
Sometimes you change horses when you get knocked off the one that brung ya. So that is where I found myself, dilapidated and with little horse power. I still don't work full time. My yard is a mess. My house has always been kept better than it is now. God Forbid there is clean laundry in baskets in my house. I have never done that. Gulp. I just don't have the energy. So I just growl at the various undone deeds and murmur to myself. It has been all I can do to work part time and keep my house chores in the nose-above-water level. ahhhh....but this is a good blog!
Today... I actually had a bit of energy to spare and I walked on my treadmill for 3 songs. One of them 5 min in length. So I figure I walked about 12 or 13 minutes. That is a big fucking deal....I had some disposable energy today!. It is like every day I start with so many energy units and when they are gone I power down PDQ. I recently went out to dinner with some girlfriends and fell asleep at the table. BUT today, I worked and still had a bit of energy left over. That is so crazy good. I wish someone would get that. I am all ready to do a high five dance, but got no body who could wrap their head around it in my vicinity. So I will just woo-hoo solo.
I have had my own reasons to "hold on" of late. Some days I hold on better than others. My recent trial has been a health challenge that ended up with 5 weeks in ICU, a ventilator and the understanding I do not fear death. But I am ahead of myself.
I guess the point of this blog is to process the things I have come to know during this struggle.
I am a tough old bird. I didn't die, I fought hard through some bad days, some hard pain, some lonely lost times...to live. I still fight, I know, it, me, life is worth fighting for. I dream of Key West with Superman, it will be sweeter than I ever thought it might have been before all of this. It is so crazy good to plan this trip, knowing I will feel better by then. I have hope, future, anticipation and adventure yet to come. I KNOW I APPRECIATE my toughness.
I lived a good life. I had no epiphany thoughts of how I was going to change the way I was living. I was living a full and happy life. I had good job, partner, friends, adventures, truth, peace and appreciation for my life. I still want to live in Nicaragua, but that was and is in the works and this trial only reaffirms that life is short. I knew that. I really know that better than most. I think it is part of my not fearing death...I fear not living while I am alive. I have learned I am LIVING and have been That is an awesome thing to know.
I am loved...OMG how they helped me hold on. I have lost spaces, weeks, memories, strength, will, reality, and self, yet they held me. Family and friends and special ones, and sons and ex-husbands and their fiancé, and a dog, all held me. One even stepped in as an illusion of my mother and turned me round in a fog that had consumed me. Such love from so many places. There have been pennies from heaven ...Thanks Moma and Daddy....gone so long, yet here one more time. I have had abundance, grace, love and support. I have so much to hold on to.
Yeah, I am ready for all this to be over, but only so I can get back to living the life I love. All of this has helped me remember I just need to hold on...
"You got to hold on... Bless my heart, bless yours too...
I have conflict in my soul about the world around me and my response to it. Recently we have had yet another horrific news event- The Boston Marathon Bombing. I know these happenings are not one dimensional, they show us at our worst (who does this stuff ) and our best (who raised the beautiful sons and daughters that stopped to render aid without thinking of self). These events pop up and unsettle my soul. How vain of me to only see it in sense of self. How telling my response.
I have lots of feelings about what has happened. I can't process them really. So I focus on what I can. I think about what I want. I think about what I have had. I mourn the loss of outrage on some level inside my quiet moments. I feel guilty that I want to not think about it. I want to not fix it. I feel hopeless, lost and sad. Then, in a moment I feel determined with strength to change what I can, accept what I cannot and to understand what falls in which category. Then I feel guilty for seeing a solution that only changes it for me. Let me explain.
My current fixation on this whole mess is about how the men where caught. Let me start by saying how glad I am that they were caught. Let me follow that with how conflictual the method of their capture was to me. Let's face it, it was surveillance cameras that were vital as well as observers using their phones. It was brought up right away how government placed camera's (Big Brother) in Europe have swiftly answered questions of who did what when. I get that more and more camera's are going to be installed. I am not a radical zealot, I am a liberal. I know, I am terrible. I know people lost their lives, limbs, loved ones. I can't fathom all of that yet. Please don't judge me too harshly. What I can give thought to, what I can grieve for is the loss of the life I grew up with.
1970 looks like the Wild West from today's point of view. In 1970 you could drop out, travel across the country. You could get a hotel without ID. Cell phones didn't track you. You could do anything with cash. You could get a job. You could go off grid in the middle of New York City, if you chose. You could lose yourself even further in Alaska. You didn't walk down the street fearing an out of place backpack. I can't, don't want to wrap my head around this new way of living. I feel powerless to stop it, change it, understand it. I want a more peaceful life. I want to worry about what is right in front of my face. I want to tend my own garden and be present in my own life. I just can't keep slicing off pieces to care about the many ills of this world. Then I am sad.
I am sad that I no longer feel the wisdom of fighting ... for what is right. What is right? Who decides? It is my belief that I have one life, this one. My point of view does not count on a "heaven"to make this life palatable. I am not counting on a chance to double down at a later date. I see the best in myself, one of self-acceptance. A life where I do not feel responsible for all the wrongs of the world. Ah, but that sword cuts back on me. My worst being that I don't feel responsible in some way for these wrongs. Aren't we all responsible?
Call me Chicken Little, but I want to move to Nicaragua (or somewhere a little less "civilized") and put my head in the sand before the sky falls. I want to help in whatever way I can, while I live a little further from the fray. I know I am just wanting to run from all of this. Doesn't anyone else feel like they sometimes can't feel anymore? Or am I just choosing not to feel? As usual, I chase my tail.
How much time, thought, energy do we give to something we feel powerless to change? Is it okay to say enough already and leave someone else to figure it out? If this is my only time, does it make me a bad person to "retire"from living in conflict? Is it a wise and mature self that accepts that a Zen life is the answer? Is a Zen point of view the pinnacle to achieve or the arrival at the intersection of Sell-Out Lane and Apathy Drive?
Like David Crosby sang....
"When I finally get myself together
Get down in some sunny southern weather
Find a place inside to laugh
Separate the wheat from the chaff
Cause I feel like I owe it to someone"
who makes people who know nothing spew the most vile hatred without a hint of compassion, just playing like a stuck record)
When I heard this song this week, I thought it fit my life which was a surprise to me on many levels. Since I divorced I haven't been interested in marriage. As life twists as I have found it often does, I had to come to terms about marriage, being asked, and what do I think about what being asked made me feel.
My Superman whispered so sexily "Will you marry me" into my ear last week. It was like silk. The words came slow, there was a slight purr in his tone. He had me wrapped up in his arms. It was perfect and like never before my heart stood still for a second and I had never felt so loved . Then I whispered NO and told him how much I loved him. Well maybe I just thought that. I will have to ask him. This isn''t the first time he has asked me. This is just the first time it felt real.
We don't want to get married. To us we already are by your standards. We are committed. We have promised to stand by each other through life's biggest battles. He will take me home should I want to die in my own bed. To me that is the ultimate promise. We do bills and vacations together. We attend family functions together. We just don't want to be trapped in legal-ness and cohabitation; our view of marriage. We get that life will change and one might need the other on a daily basis in the future and we have begun to talk about what that will look like. We believe we have learned from our mistakes and we value our separateness as much as our togetherness. I think we are considered part of a new movement, those living apart, together or LAT's.
We live apart. We see each other on a schedule but allow for fluctuation in our separate lives. We negotiate, communicate and seem to navigate this relationship coherently and consciously. That doesn't sound so romantic and I think that is what caught my heart last week. See my Superman knows I want to co-habitat/marry less than he does. He often will ask me to marry him. We have an agreement, he can ask me, but I am going to say no. But this week was different. He ask me with such perfectness that I knew that if he/we were wanting to marry, he would be asking me. And he would ask me just like that.
So this week I got to have the joy that every girl has when some one she loves asks her to marry them. It is a moment when the words are said so lovingly that you melt; they catch in your breath. I said no in a whispered voice and could feel his smile against my cheek at my response. Superman and I choose to go a different way. We are always excited to be together. We have years together and it is like we are still in those first months of dating. Yet we have developed a very deep love for the other. One that bears the confidence, security and great respect of a long mature marriage. Yes we have learned from our mistakes. Not just our own, but each others.
So last week I felt like I had it all. I had all the love of being loved and all the space to continue to love him and myself. No matter if you are 18 or or 50 + 18 don't be afraid to define your own path. Just be happy on the the path you're on. I love the ease of this journey. I love the surety of it. I feel more held at this distance than I ever did up close, bound in a marriage.
Superman, charcoal shirt, jeans, no shoes, beach ... ask me again. I will give you the answer I always have ... "No but I will play honeymoon". We can play honeymoon in Key West. I hope you know how much I love you. Thank you for asking like that...so I know how wonderful it all is, on our terms. I do do do .... But I won't. : )
