During the years I've been a single mother mostly full-time I've found that in the Summer, when I get a bit of a respite, I am always surprised at how I virtually collapse. I had things planned for this time alone. Then I realize that 'being up,' holding an emotional space steady, as well as earning money from different sources, and all the shopping, cleaning, feeding, structuring of a life all year takes its toll, and everything that was put off comes around. I worked one day this week. Last night, after spending 5 hours reformatting a Win98 laptop with a noxious virus that kept replicating as fast as I could delete enough space to run the utilities disc, I gave up on my planned projects and of trying to keep normal hours and am letting myself fall into whatever feels most natural. If that's going to bed at 2am and getting up at 5:30am and then sleeping from 11am to 12pm, okay. I eat very simply when I'm hungry (lots of fresh fruit and vegetables); go for long walks with Keesha, my dog, through the St. Clair ravine (yesterday I saw perhaps 3 people in there, one sun bather reading, two jogging women); read, and rest, and rest. I don't ruminate. I don't think. I just feel all the places where it hurts, all the things that bewilder me, and let heal. I have to be through this by Sunday...
The Deeper Meditation
I want
to lie here
and do
nothing
but heal.
I trace
the world
mnemonically,
move
through the scenes
of my life
like a sleepwalker.
Bandaging
rubbing cream
into old scars
massaging
peeling the layers
behind which I hide.
The rain
falls softly
as I lie prone.
Breathing deeply
the humid
healing air.
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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Rest and healing to you Brenda. Reading this, I feel the tiredness but I sense a groundedness as well.
ReplyDeleteYou will heal, we all will .... and the poem is part of the process. Let Sunday come in its own time.
I like your poetry and have always thought that Toronto was a place of wonder, there on the shore of...Ontario??
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read any Margaret Atwood? I believe she is from your neck of the woods.
Peace
((Brenda))
ReplyDeleteRest. You will renew.
As Mary said, Sunday has it's own momentum. I'm struck by the word "just" in I just feel all the places where it hurts, all the things that bewilder me, and let heal.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure there is any "just" about it. Those things are of magnitude. Daunting even.
In the poem, you talk of wanting to "do nothing but heal". I suspect that healing is the everything. It is the difference between living and simply existing.
I hope that the next few days are gentle on you, and you gentle with yourself.
xx
"Holding an emotional space steady" - maybe that's the most tiring thing in the world. Certainly the greatest gift you give your children. I can only try and grasp it through knowing how hard it is to project even and productive energy all day, five days a week, in a workplace, however impossible it feels, because if I can't I'll lose my income. That is very hard. And it's not loaded with all the love and obligation you feel towards your kids.
ReplyDeleteSo no wonder you sink into your tiredness and can't keep to a schedule at these times. It sounds utterly sane and healthy. And the space within which you write such a beautiful poem has to be the right one.
Mary, thanks, it's been a quiet and recuperative couple of days... I guess I needed it.
ReplyDeleteGoatman, hi! I'm Canadian, of course I've read Margaret Atwood - she's a cultural icon! I was once her neighbour even (a block or so away). I most loved her early poetry, and learnt much from it. I have to admit I haven't kept up with all the novels, but one day I'll do a Margaret fest and read them all. Glad to see she's one of your favourites too!
MB, yes, it's a magical, mystical process isn't it - resting, renewing...
Stray, sometimes it surely is "just" - no resistance, let the pain and hurts and humiliations, the difficult things flow without restriction... don't have to have any kind of interpretation or judgement either. Neither blaming myself nor anyone else when it's time to see what's been swept under the rug all year. A gentle housecleaning, letting oneself heal, renew, recharge.
I've never tried living without a schedule, or not sticking to a nightly sleep. It's been almost scary to let go of structure. I'm ready to get back to a normal schedule now...
Going with the inner rhythms. It was actually so freeing, like taking a holiday.
Thank you, everyone, your comments were so wonderfully understanding and healing in themselves!