2.7.18 Peripatetic Dawn

Early this morning, I drove to the mall, where Planet Fitness lives, catching sight of the golden sun beneath the frozen clouds, upon the endless horizon.

2.7.18 Still Standing

It’s funny how, when things are difficult, some small noisy part of us thinks that the lousier habits, that rise up ,will somehow be exempt. From the natural rules of choice and consequence. 

And yet, gravity still exists. Crap still accumulates, and can slay us, from lousy habits during tough times.

I’ve been flirting with coffee milkshakes, to soothe tough sad afternoons. Butter laden pesto and gnocchi , to smooth difficult nights.
I’ve been pretending the basil is a green vegetable. I’ve been telling myself the milk and sugar and ice cream are just momentary crutches. But the guck from them still marches on.

The lousy feeling when you wake. The heavy lymph and lungs. The realization that you could save $85 and snowblow today yourself, except you see what it will do to your back, your immunity. Because you’ve been growing inflamed and messy. 

And yet, veering off and thrashing about can wake you up, too. Can shake you awake from your ‘It’s so tough’ waking dream.

So I’m glad, today, to reawaken. To greet myself in the darkness before the dawn.
I’m sipping miso to clean out the guck and I’m soaking lungs with a suck-out-the-guck castor oil poultice.

I’m sautéing a bunch of broccoli and mushroom and shallot , and buying a pricey all-ready-for-you fruit salad.

I’m going to greet the sad and angry and loss and hurt with big strong arms , like we all know how to do for our selves, for each other. 

I’m going to sing to myself ‘Just one day at a time’ and heat up some fragrant sweet tea. 

Because this stuff just happens. No matter how shocking or unanticipated it seems.

When we look around, we see it’s happened all over . 

All kinds of tough tough . 

And look, we are all still standing.

2.5.18 A Big Bunch of Difficult

Often times, when there’s a big bunch of difficult, 
we can sit and be present and feel how we feel , 
as the mound of crap gets slowly processed down. 
As we breathe a big sigh of relief, and live on.

2.5.18 Irreverence

Down by the farmers fields, 33° felt like -100, with the stolid frozen wind. So we tromped along, me irreverently in my wool socks and Birkenstocks, on the frozen ground , thick with melting mud ,much diminished ice and snow, coming upon grasses and other plants bright green and thriving , newly uncovered, on this chilly February day.

2.4.18 The Hole In The Road

You’re going down the road, and you fall into a hole. 

You freak out and you flop around and you are upset that you fell into the hole and you’re worried you won’t be able to get out of the hole and then you look and you focus and you slowly figure out how to climb out of the hole. 

The next day, you’re walking down the road, and you fall into the hole. And you berate yourself for falling into the hole again, and you get all upset, and then you remember that you figured out before how to climb out, and you try to remember how to do it and then you remember and then you climb out of the hole and brush yourself off and walk down the road.

The next day, you’re walking down the road, and you fall into the hole. And you say, “ Oh crap, I fell into the hole again” . But you don’t freak out and you remember that you fell in before and that you got out and then you remember how to get out and then you get out. 

And you walk down the road

Then, a day or month or year later, you’re walking down the road, and you remember that there’s a hole, and you watch for the hole, and you avoid the hole, and you walk down the road.

And THAT is how we heal.

2.4.18 Sometimes We Awaken

It’s remarkable how we become slowly rendered , who and what we are and can be and will be, by experience.
By storms and betrayal, and then , by love and stolid support. 

On we go, along our path. Learning to observe and honor others. Learning to not make our selves or our needs small .

Sometimes we awaken to realize we have chosen to live long patches of years beneath the weight of emotional and ideological misunderstandings.
Beneath the crushing weight of the harmful machinations of others.

Sometimes we awaken, as if out of some fable or mistaken dream or cloistered agreement , made while unawares, while fast asleep.
Sometimes it is our dreams that call out to us. That press to our side, rousing us roughly , saying “Awaken! Awaken now!
It has been too long you have slept a drugged sleep of the brainwashed.
Wake, wake now! Step out no matter the cost or fear you are imagining .
For your entire self awaits you now, your own precious days now beckon.”

2.1.18 Little Lord Fauntleroy

The problem with trying to be kind and kid-gloving someone,

who is in a tough deal,is they begin to assume that's the new normal. 

Like an inadvertent little Lord Fauntleroy, 

you inadvertently create a whole new paradigm, 

that isn't reciprocal, and eventually comes to suck. 

Then you have to grow and learn and mature and figure out how to 

be thoughtful in a sustainable manner, 

and toss those kidskin gloves to the curb. 2.1.2017