About Time

Sitting in my room listening to the quiet patters of falling rain, my thoughts turn to growth.  Not  physical growth (I'm holding steady in that respect), but the change in my inner being, psyche and thinking, which has been nothing short of miraculous.  As I look out the window at the grey, dreary afternoon whose daylight is wrapping to a close, I marvel at how even keeled I feel.   

There was a time when I’d look outside during the dark winter months and feel my soul shrink right before my eyes.  I was always so moody and prone to reacting to outer stimuli, whatever the source, that looking back, I liken who I was to a giant barometer.  Things like the weather and peoples moods once had the power to send me reeling as I had less control over my reactions and, was much more prone to internalize everything I came across, including my own emotional landscape.

I won’t say that I’ve arrived, as we are always morphing as human beings, but it is good to put the proverbial stake in the ground and sit for a while, recounting the changes and steps forward I’ve taken, guided by the invisible hand offered me so many years ago now.  My moods have gentled, thoughts become more even keeled, as opposed to jagged trains of words I’d have to catch and unravel with some effort.  I’m more composed, confident and, I feel whole, not like before where I felt I was made up of so many pieces just trying to hold it all together.  And people notice the change.

Scene shift:  it’s 6:00 Wednesday morning.  I’ve just had coffee and breakfast and am back in the saddle of my writing chair.  Settledness is a sensation I can honestly say I’ve never experienced on a regular basis, until now.  The swiftly tilting planets within me just never let up their motion and I had no choice but to follow behind like a dutiful pooper- scooper running after a horse.  The emotions and moods that sloshed around inside me like an ocean during a storm were always threatening to bleed into the fabric of my day and often did. 

What a joy to feel composed.  What a treat to feel empowered and competent in my own skin, to not constantly feel like I have to prove and demonstrate the validity of my being, my worth, because I already know it deep down inside.  People take me seriously now, because I am doing the same.  I never thought I’d arrive at such a state of personal wellbeing.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was beginning to thrive and at almost 48, it’s about time.       

Home (a few years back...)

Home is a resting ground for my worries.  A place where I take off my hat, and the thoughts fall off

one by one onto the hardwood floor.  As I kick them aside, I crawl into bed, weary bones sinking into

the mattress that feels like a pillow cradling my limbs, and absorb the shock of another day lived in

this obstacle course of life.  

I lie, wrapped in my comforter, peacefully watching cars pass by though the lace filter of curtains that

covers the window.  My body drops into its folds, while patches of bare skin brush up against a wooly

blanket.  I think of my grandmothers big, soft bed that swallowed me up whole when I was a child,

and smile.  I hug my Hello Kitty doll to my chest in a fetal position, barely able to move, barely able

to  breath.  I'm weary from trying, weary from crying, though my shallow breath seems to sustain me.

I feel likeI am in a hospital, recovering from a malady, some past ill that has haunted me and brought

me here to this spiritual asylum.  And indeed I am.   

From bedlam to beauty, I write.  As I wake from the dream I’ve yearned so long to escape - the

dream of my days, the nightmare of my past -  I am free for the first time in my life.  The

shackles of prison surround me no more, the barbed wire has snapped and I write, a wild banshee

cutting through the fields running for my life, running for my freedom.

Now, beauty surrounds me:  flowers and sunshine and a view.  The first of my adult life.  Ever so

slowly, I take it all in, absorbing every breath, and moving like a wounded insect struggling for its

life on the windowsill.  I take nothing for granted, not even the beat of my own heart.  I am fragile,

but alive, vulnerable but safe, wounded but healing...

I wonder if you are wondering where I’ve come from?  What path I’ve taken that has consumed me

whole and then some.  Dare I delve?  I don’t know.  Dare I speak of the shadows, and the underworld,

the sewers and devils that held me fast while I struggled and strained to escape - all the while getting

more embedded - like quicksand, into the dark and miry mirk?  Do I speak of the terrors of nightfall,

that lunged for my arm, waiting to eat me alive while I struggled and strained to break free?  Or do I

just shrug and carry on?  I don't know, but sinking into this moment sure feels good.  I don’t have to

run, or hide or look back over my shoulder trying to dodge hades.  No.  Today I can smile, safe in this

open fortress that is my room, and thank heaven that my life rests safe within its confines, quiet and

sweet.  And that, God willing, I will rise to another day, another occasion to make merriment and sing

praise.