Waves and Words

I often don’t take the time to sit with waves lately. They either seem banal – a sorry, passively accepted routine – or tensely impermanent. And when I sit to write, thy usually scribe listlessly from my pen in an exhausted drawl. It’s just this again.

         The mind is so trained at categorizing. Handy for things like prioritizing to-do lists, creating activities for groups, enabling us to gauge things quickly to best max out our multi-task force. Not so handy in feeling life, discovering the silenced voices of body cells, or quenching that insatiable, mysterious hunger that thinks it can just consume its way to answers. Yeah, like we dig holes to China.

       And I categorize my moments, clump them on gray-scale spectrums and busy myself with them only to the effect of an over-compulsive janitor, sweeping and stacking and reorganizing dog-eared text books where I’ve memorized some mundane data…so why does it feel like I am not learning?  

             Novelty. The overwhelming Tsunami of emotion that overtakes me, this seemingly calculated “cap” I have on how much suppression my center-speak can sustain; I need to recognize the novelty of its expression every time. Okay. So last time felt big. Life changing. Then things mellowed. Then I disappointed myself. So this feels big. Best not get invested.

         

You keep reorganizing the same story. You’re still stuck with the same old components. It only changes with a new page (or two, or three…

The past week or so, I have felt bitter. Without honoring its novelty, I usually tend to stew in tunnel vision until I miraculously knock out of it or the world shows up differently.

Now it is time to honor the bitterness. Its all me.

            My various health concerns relating to digestion come and go in levels of severity or obstruction to daily life. Sometimes they are the dust in a messy home, the symptom of life being lived too fully for time to take pause with the “trivial”. Then the dust is suddenly smog and I am an ungoverned city, intricate webs of legislature too overwhelming to structure into a recovery plan. I get narrow in my panic. I resent. I ask why. I distract. I dwell on past versions of myself that in this haze, seem so preferable even though I know I wouldn’t want to go be younger me. But at least occasional naiveté was enjoyable then.

            That past self easily satiated compulsory needs for sexuality and “intimacy”. My matured mind of reason and value does not want to settle as a deeper connection becomes primary but it constantly battles with that being part of who I am. And my discomfort with my health obscures any focus to gracefully handle either approach.

            And then my conflict of inner interest with outer capability was exacerbated this week by my first bone injury, resulting in temporarily limiting the use of my right arm. I am good at delayed recognition of realities and when I slipped on ice while boarding last week, I easily imagined waking up the next day with the “kink” worked out of my wrist. Well, the kink was a Radial Fracture and a week later; I am just now, as of this evening, ready to focus my attention away from moping (you know, by the end of this public mope.)

           

             All week I have been saying how poorly I handle debilitation. And while the experiences of my past make that sentence a metaphorical revelation for me, I highly doubt anyone enjoys debilitation. Yet even after knowing so many in my life who deal with severe limitation on a daily basis and having a woman at bingo the other night (always so outwardly gleeful) share the trials of her chronic autoimmune disease with me, I am still huffing about in our team meeting as I imagine abandonment during two-handed activities at our SMACed training retreat. Hearing the mention of the Pass, I am still acting like my 10-year-old self getting grounded from a sleepover at the last minute. And I am still acting like this has deeper, dire impacts on my life.

            I recognize this somber outlook to be related to an authentic emotional response. I occasionally get this inner, momentary hyper-panic when I tune in to the constraint of the splint around my arm, just as I have this strong, infectious anxiety in tight spaces or sometimes franticly notice how my toes can’t be further apart inside shoes. That speaks to something deeper. But the emotional has its place and it’s not in the inconvenience of my sorry little wrist!

           

         I just watched a move called Soul Surfer. From the cover and title, it looked like something I would never have an interest in watching. Well, I cried on and off through the whole movie. To put in context, it is based on a true story about a teen surfer who loses an arm in a shark attack but goes on to become a professional surfer. Literal and figurative ways to relate galore. It captures the utter frustration and disbelief when approached with a task you were able to do effortlessly just days before. But moreover, the girl epitomizes the resilient grace that is the single most important element to thriving in such adversity. Humbling. Inspiring. And it whoop perspective’s ass.

           

           It is Easter weekend. In this town, secrets scream out to me all the time. But on such a “cheery” holiday, they are especially loud. Helping with a brunch at the old folks’ home, I see a student (I want to whisk away) accompanied by their sibling (practically tried to kill them), mom (negligent user) and niece (1 and a half and “shit” is her favorite word) to join their grandma (gave the kids alcohol-filled baby bottles when they were young). Driving to an egg hunt today, I see a young student – a rape victim – walking calmly with her guardian. At the egg hunt, a young kid beats on their grandparent with abnormal hatred while the guardian brazenly ignores and continuously attempts to offer treats. The eggs are all real (factory) eggs. Hundreds to be found and thrown away. Painted pastel. Facades are everywhere. There are deflated balloons on posts along the road home. A birthday? Celebration. These facades - moments to act normal - should I be bitter about them? Or glad that we can even have that?

           

        A kind friend recently offered words of praise as to the intentions and authentic tone of my writing on here. As to what I am accomplishing. Sometimes, I don’t know so I hope this isn’t a façade. But perhaps facades are what lead us to that authenticity.

When it’s overwhelming inside, throw some shit out the door.

Thus, my words in this post.

Do not regard as doom and gloom. Just a time of deep, undulating emotion. This means deep rolls of gratitude also, for as much as I can feel isolation, I simultaneously feel, in a very different way, an overabundance of love in my life. That will feature more head on in my next posts, accounts of Spring Break Travel (Mitten, to mountains, then beyond!) But it may be slow in coming…I am only typing with one arm =P