I didn’t
know that the study of Presence would lead me into such a place of silence,
away from words. Yet it has while you have wondered where is she and when is
she coming back.
But I’m
right here however silent, watching as the world rages on.
The few
posting I’ve been able to make here this year are another signpost of just how
absent my energy has been. I’m not up for much. It’s taken a week to put up a
small Christmas tree and even that is not completely decorated and I doubt it
will be finished before it’s time to take it down. Even a year ago I would have
rushed, or tried to rush, to have the flat decorated for Christmas and the
fridge stocked for the holidays. Now I know I’m not going to finish even half
of what I set out to. Oddly, I am at peace with this.
This autumn
I became acutely aware of just how little energy I have left and how little
time I have left to spend it. For some reason in accepting the limited I’ve had
a glimpse of the limitless. I made changes, positive ones. Some of the changes I
know have come as a surprise or shock to people in my daily life. But to those
in my circle, to those who have really been listening to me over the past year,
they understood, applauded and accepted the changes. But not everyone heard me and
some continued to demand my time or energy even after I said I have nothing
left in me to give you.
If I have
nothing left in me how can I give to others? That makes sense, doesn’t it? Even
this replenishment of self is part of process, a healing process and a return
to flow. Why do we spend so much of our lives struggling against flow? Trying
to do more and be more so our lives have “purpose” when really, our only
purpose is to simply be ourselves. And right now who I am is a woman who is
disabled who is working on being healthy. Reality is far from perfect but as I am
learning: healthy does not necessarily mean physically cured of disease. Even
this has become a positive touchstone in my life.
There are a
great many positive touchstones in my life at the present. In each moment, by day
and by night, I find myself immensely happy and celebrating being here. However,
“here” doesn’t look like it once did, nor how I ever imagined it would look –
but then I never imagined things could be this good. Funny how that works, isn’t
it.
I’m still here, however slight. I have been living in the long months of utter exhaustion, surgery, anaesthesia, attempts at recovering and then the realising I will never be able to go back to the life I once had – the life before long term illness. For the first time in 12 years I may finally be coming to terms with that.
There may be no more Bethells beach, Mount Baker, or Kilimanjaro for me. Not in this lifetime, at least. I may never live my dream to walk the pilgrimage route across France and on across Spain, to Santiago de Compostela. I can only hold on to that dream as that: a dream. At one time I had the ability to follow dreams and make them real. Now I walk much slower through what is real.
I have to admit that I am not one to lightly give up on dreams and goals. So I am making compromises and holding them in a different place inside me now. Meanwhile I try not to look backwards at my abilities of 12 years ago, or 6 years ago, or even a year ago when I could accomplish more than I can today. The more my life becomes narrowed by illness the more I am finding what counts, while seeming small, is actually limitless – because what is left, after all, is something so precious it is without price – it is this – this precious present moment.
For a month or more I have gone missing in that narrow place. That place which is ruled by illness infection antibiotics fever chills pain and the rest of the jailers. They dictate and control like a totalitarian regime. Wales moved from spring into summer while I wondered what happened to my weeks to my months to my year. For that time I had no space for wishes but then sometimes there was a hint of life and I wished then only for something shiny to hang my hope on, if only for a moment so I might know that this too has an end and that there are places beyond the narrow one.
The fevers brought on vivid dreams of bamboo forests and medieval cathedrals. In fevers I challenged duality to reason all is one – every living breathing moving particle is one is the absolute. Duality is an illusion, I argued. It must be if this narrow place contains the infinite. Only in a fever do I understand gravity and advanced physics. Only then do I understand that which is shiny, that which hope hangs on, is the shimmering effervescent realm of continual creation.
Now, without fever, to remember this.
For a month now I’ve been listening to the shipping forecast and watching the shipping charts. I’ve been following the journey of one ship in particular. It has a German name, is flying a Japanese flag, is being piloted by a Greek company, and its last port was on the east coast of the US. Somewhere in that ship, in a large wooded crate, are the rest of my belongings.
In 1989 my then partner and I left the home we’d been living in for 8 years. It was the longest I’d ever lived in one place and leaving it set off a wave of panic attacks. I need solid ground under me and there is nothing solid about leaving the comfort of the familiar. Maybe in some larger plan there was sense to the following years because since then I’ve moved on a near yearly basis, sometimes twice a year. Rarely did I migrate in the same direction, or in the same country, or continent.
On each of these moves I shed more of my belongings, sometimes with regret. When my walkabouts reached global proportions what was left of my things went into storage. It’s been more than a dozen years since I’ve seen them and since then they’ve seen the inside of two storage facilities, a friend’s barn, and a friend’s cellar. I miss these things. Yes, I know they are “just” things – but what remains of them is more than memories. They are part of what I lost some time ago – the comfort of the familiar.
Chart courtesy of www.sailwx.info
I keep pacing back and forth in the grieving place. My head hurts and I need to do the washing up. This morning I ate my scrambled eggs with a spoon because all four forks were in the sink. There’s an assignment due next week and I can’t find the words to put to paper. I can’t find my watch either.
We had no unfinished business. She knew I loved her as my own mother and I knew she loved me as another daughter. That was her way and she helped me to find mine. What more could anyone ask but for that respect, that recognition, and that love. I am so fortunate, and I know it.
Even now when look inside I am full, not empty. Is grief supposed to be like that? When I hear the small still voice within I find great joy in that moment, even in the moments in the grieving place.
The funeral is this afternoon. I’ve been feeling down, for days. But this morning I am well and truly depressed. I wish I wasn’t going to her funeral. I wish I didn’t have to. Instead I wish I could call her up and have a good chat. Or go over for a cuppa. Instead, I am inside, waiting. The blinds are drawn. It is very dark both inside and out. Heavy rains.
I can’t concentrate on my work. Maybe I’ll write a letter to her. We always had a good laugh. Her smile was as wide as Wales. She never remembered to wear her teeth. Hate those teeth she’d say. Once they popped out in the middle of the co-op. We’d gone shopping. The teeth went flying and my elderly friend caught them in mid-flight like an acrobat. Takes practice she’d say. We’d laugh all the more.
The funeral isn’t for another 6 hours. What can I do now.
The cats could care less that it’s Pancake Day. They like Purina not pancakes and have anyhow spent the entire day asleep on the sofa. From hour to hour the view is much the same. Lulu chooses the back of the sofa, while Bella prefers the seat – and always under the window. They rarely vary. I love their habits. Well, most of them.
I know shrove comes from the word shrive, to confess one’s sins or to receive absolution. I have no sins to confess this day. Instead, today has been one of deep gratitude and deep silence. It was a year ago that I moved into this flat. It was a year ago last week that I was told, while in the council office, that I had been awarded the flat. I tried not to cry happy tears. But there were tears – tears of relief. And now a year later I am granted secure tenancy….. for as long as I live.
Today there were no tears. Today has been soft light without shadows, and as always the ticking of the clock in the hallway…. perhaps these simple graces are my absolution for years of wandering.
I’m still here. Winter, time of hibernation, isn’t it. Mine started early. Flu knocked me for six. Weeks of it. Then some dark days. Never before in my life have I been so happy to see the backside of the holidays. Usually they are a time of great celebration for me what with my birthday, Christmas, and the New Year all lined up in a row like three peas in a pod. But this year, for reasons beyond me, I didn’t celebrate until they were over.
And since then? Timeless and great beauty in a winter-sleep. My life grows, catching me sometimes in awe and in wonder. I love how things unfold. Everything happening as it is. Perfect. Even in days of difficulties. Or days of absolute joy.
There are: ideas, new projects, writing, photos, articles, journals, train schedules, and far too many time zones between me and those I love.
Spring is arriving and….. I am waking……. with more to tell you….. but first tell me – are you still there?
Angels hit by stones
Who still have the strength
Not to draw back into the air
Beg me, wounded
And exhausted for hospitality
And still fluttering lightly
Fall asleep meek and delicate in my notebooks,
Pulling just in slumber
When they become chilly
A white sheet over their wings.
In the morning I know I’ve not been dreaming
Because of the feathers’ impression on the pages
And I hurry to memorize them
Before they’re confiscated from me
In order to decree new species
Of birds of prey.
From the poem “Proofs” by Ana Blandiana of The Hours of Sand: Selected Poems 1969 – 1989. Translated by Peter Jay and Anca Cristofovici and published by Anvil Press Poetry in 1990.
