Monday, October 29, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Autumn day
The day was perfect. The air dry now, after being so wet and rainy these past several weeks, the sun shining in a near cloudless sky. I mostly looked at the ground though, raking up tall grass that had been mowed days earlier. It was warm enough to dress sleeveless, and the occasional breeze would blow to cool off my skin from what little sweat I worked up.
I raked the hay up into little piles, then transferred the piles into the big yellow bucket to bring to the garden bed by the old willow tree stump. I raked and raked, the prevalent sound being the repetitive Swoosh-Swish of the dead grass sweeping up towards me, and as I raked, I thought. The thoughts circled, at times considering to move towards more practical affairs, more wordly things, but never truly wanting to leave the matter pressing my heart. In love with a man 8000 miles away, desperately trying to work through hurdles and fears to forge and grow a bond despite the logistical impossibility of the situation.
We had tried to have a conversation on skype, but just as we again approached a critical junction, the crazy man who wanted to sky dive from space, 125,000 feet in the air, was about to move into action. The action proved to not be as iminient as we thought, but still, our attention had turned. So we sat, with images of each other in corners of the screen, watching a man in what was quite possibly the last hour of his life. Outside it was a beautiful day
Swoosh ---
--- Swish
The rake kept moving, the sun kept shining. The bucket filled to the top - overflowing, and I'd lift it to my hip by the rope handles, holding the overflow in with the rake and trudge it over to the side of the field. Dump. It fell out in a mold of sorts, reminding me of building sand castles at the beach.
I considered staying online with him, sitting there, both of us, pretending to be having a conversation. At times we'd mention a thing or two, try to talk, but there was no point really, we had to wait for the man to jump. As his capsule started to depressurize and I realized the moment would be soon, I grew uncomfortable. I did not want to watch a man fall to his death, should he die. I hoped he would live, but who could tell, in a crazy stunt like this? Considering the delicate state of our relationship, I thought about it, then decided it was bad Karma to sit there, together, 8000 miles apart and watch a man fall to his death. So I said I wanted to go. And there I went, to the rake and the hay and the bucket, and the swish-swoosh against the wind in the warm autumn sun.
As I walked to the pile by the garden, the wind would blow little bits of grass out of the bucket to fly away on the soft breeze. Gentle breeze, now and again, blowing my hair from my eyes, and whispering to me, "I'm here. When you're ready, I'm here for you."
Swoosh ---
--- Swish
There's something meditative in any action so repetitive. Something soothing. Generally a place very good for solving problems. But this was not a new problem. I had visited this one in many a meditative state before...and no answer had come yet.
The harsh truth of reality seemed to tell me there was no hope. That we were both fooling ourselves and drawing out the inevitable. "I don't want to lose him," my heart stated boldly, and the tears welled. The grass on the ground now blurred to an impressionist painting of greens and browns, almost like camoflauge... I blinked. Then breathing in deeply, I dumped another pile into the bucket. Tears fell on dead grass, and I stood in the warm sunshine, staring into the distance, wooden handle of the rake resting on my forehead. I noticed little sparkles and rainbows dance around my vision, where the bright sun had turned the tears on my eyelashes into tiny prisms. He'd be home soon, 3 weeks, maybe 5...no one really knew for sure, but even then, not much would really change.
Swish ---
--- Swoosh
There was much more grass to rake then I would manage today. Still recovering from illness, it felt good to be moving and doing again, but my heart was so heavy. I breathed deep, smelling the hay. Images of horses and memories of wagon rides in pumpkin fields and generally all things Fall sprinkled down around my heart, like multicolored leaves. Somewhere in the distance a lawn mower was running....ah, harvest time, there is always something comforting in that.
I wanted to operate from a place of love. How best to love in this situation? Perhaps as friends, but to be friends would require that painful separation period. No contact, for long enough to truly let go. I imagined what it would be like....thought of him and the other women in his life. He may well find himself involved with another, it was possible. Either way, he'd have more time for the troubled one whose presence in his life was so threatening to me.
Swoosh ---
--- Swish
The danger in loving truly, in loving from a place of maturity, is that you do not need the other person, and people do so love to be needed. And the clouds in the northern sky were a smear of little white blotches against a vivid blue.
"Happy is a choice, right?" I reminded myself. I think he said that to me once. Learn to be happy for happiness' sake. That one I think I read. Ah...but that wasn't going to happen today. I'm not quite ready for that one, but still, outside, it was a perfect day.
I raked the hay up into little piles, then transferred the piles into the big yellow bucket to bring to the garden bed by the old willow tree stump. I raked and raked, the prevalent sound being the repetitive Swoosh-Swish of the dead grass sweeping up towards me, and as I raked, I thought. The thoughts circled, at times considering to move towards more practical affairs, more wordly things, but never truly wanting to leave the matter pressing my heart. In love with a man 8000 miles away, desperately trying to work through hurdles and fears to forge and grow a bond despite the logistical impossibility of the situation.
We had tried to have a conversation on skype, but just as we again approached a critical junction, the crazy man who wanted to sky dive from space, 125,000 feet in the air, was about to move into action. The action proved to not be as iminient as we thought, but still, our attention had turned. So we sat, with images of each other in corners of the screen, watching a man in what was quite possibly the last hour of his life. Outside it was a beautiful day
Swoosh ---
--- Swish
The rake kept moving, the sun kept shining. The bucket filled to the top - overflowing, and I'd lift it to my hip by the rope handles, holding the overflow in with the rake and trudge it over to the side of the field. Dump. It fell out in a mold of sorts, reminding me of building sand castles at the beach.
I considered staying online with him, sitting there, both of us, pretending to be having a conversation. At times we'd mention a thing or two, try to talk, but there was no point really, we had to wait for the man to jump. As his capsule started to depressurize and I realized the moment would be soon, I grew uncomfortable. I did not want to watch a man fall to his death, should he die. I hoped he would live, but who could tell, in a crazy stunt like this? Considering the delicate state of our relationship, I thought about it, then decided it was bad Karma to sit there, together, 8000 miles apart and watch a man fall to his death. So I said I wanted to go. And there I went, to the rake and the hay and the bucket, and the swish-swoosh against the wind in the warm autumn sun.
As I walked to the pile by the garden, the wind would blow little bits of grass out of the bucket to fly away on the soft breeze. Gentle breeze, now and again, blowing my hair from my eyes, and whispering to me, "I'm here. When you're ready, I'm here for you."
Swoosh ---
--- Swish
There's something meditative in any action so repetitive. Something soothing. Generally a place very good for solving problems. But this was not a new problem. I had visited this one in many a meditative state before...and no answer had come yet.
The harsh truth of reality seemed to tell me there was no hope. That we were both fooling ourselves and drawing out the inevitable. "I don't want to lose him," my heart stated boldly, and the tears welled. The grass on the ground now blurred to an impressionist painting of greens and browns, almost like camoflauge... I blinked. Then breathing in deeply, I dumped another pile into the bucket. Tears fell on dead grass, and I stood in the warm sunshine, staring into the distance, wooden handle of the rake resting on my forehead. I noticed little sparkles and rainbows dance around my vision, where the bright sun had turned the tears on my eyelashes into tiny prisms. He'd be home soon, 3 weeks, maybe 5...no one really knew for sure, but even then, not much would really change.
Swish ---
--- Swoosh
There was much more grass to rake then I would manage today. Still recovering from illness, it felt good to be moving and doing again, but my heart was so heavy. I breathed deep, smelling the hay. Images of horses and memories of wagon rides in pumpkin fields and generally all things Fall sprinkled down around my heart, like multicolored leaves. Somewhere in the distance a lawn mower was running....ah, harvest time, there is always something comforting in that.
I wanted to operate from a place of love. How best to love in this situation? Perhaps as friends, but to be friends would require that painful separation period. No contact, for long enough to truly let go. I imagined what it would be like....thought of him and the other women in his life. He may well find himself involved with another, it was possible. Either way, he'd have more time for the troubled one whose presence in his life was so threatening to me.
Swoosh ---
--- Swish
The danger in loving truly, in loving from a place of maturity, is that you do not need the other person, and people do so love to be needed. And the clouds in the northern sky were a smear of little white blotches against a vivid blue.
"Happy is a choice, right?" I reminded myself. I think he said that to me once. Learn to be happy for happiness' sake. That one I think I read. Ah...but that wasn't going to happen today. I'm not quite ready for that one, but still, outside, it was a perfect day.
I'm love and I'm always yours
So it's been a while, and a million and one things have changed...as they do, but...
It's been a roller coaster, things with C. It got really really bad, pretty close to done, and then we went to Ireland together. I finally got to see him after 4 very long months. And it was wonderful, and at times...less than great, but truly, always wonderful. Because how could we not be in wonder? There, in that beautiful land that was for him all new, and for me some new, some bittersweetly reminiscent, with rainbows all around, truly how could we not be in awesome wonder? We were there, exploring and learning and loving, together. And we were oh so happy being together.
That was our fantasy escape. A place detached from the rest of our reality, where we could just be happy. Now we're back to the other reality, which in truth, with him still being in Afghanistan, is not a regular reality either...it's the other extreme. Instead of being together 24/7, with no stress, and surrounded by beauty, we are apart 24/7, with him under immense stress, surrounded by war. And I'm here, trying to live my "normal" reality and mantain a relationship that has no definition.
I thought we were doing well. Despite everything, I really thought things were going well. Then some stuff came up, and we didn't really have the time or means to truly deal with it, discuss it, and resolve it. Then some more stuff came up, we both got sick, and now I just don't even know.
We had a conversation tonight on skype. It was way late on his end, and he is way overtired and stressed. But the issues aren't going anywhere, so we tried to fix things. We talked, for hours, and we both visited angry, confused, hurt, and frustrated several times. We had to end the conversation when exhaustion overtook him. Of course, then I also felt guilty. (Always a pleasant flavor to add to the stew.)
And it's so frustrating now when I think about it...why is it so difficult??!?! We love each other, very much. Why isn't it just easy after that? And I laugh, cuz that's just not the way. I keep going back to the thoughts about control. Am I trying to control things again? Is that where my anxiety lies? Is it truly fear of betrayal or abandonment that makes me nervous, or is it just that I have no control?
I was reading some of Terri's old blogs and remembered the time she talked about trying to force our ideas of how things should be onto life. (It doesn't work, in case you were wondering.) Yet we still try. We trick ourselves so that we don't realize that's what we're doing...but it always comes 'round and bites us in the end. I am replaying the conversation I had with C tonight over and over again in my head...rereading the chat messages, trying to make sense of it all. It doesn't make sense, the whole thing baffles me completely. I caught myself saying "this isn't how it's supposed to be" somewhere deep in the caverns of my brain. Where exactly did I get the notion that I have any say in how it's supposed to be?
I think what happens is that we practice flowing, and accepting, and learning and growing, and sometimes we hit that groove...and things flow so smooth in the groove that we think we're in control....and then we forget how to flow all over again.
So that's where I'm at now. I'm trying to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and ask the questions again and see where I'm headed and why. And truthfully, at the moment all I can see is a big mess. Ah well, we keep gettin' the lesson 'til we learn it, right?
Found this Rumi tonight:
and just the moment
when you are all confused
leaps forth a voice
hold me close
i'm love and
i'm always yours
I need to ponder this for a while.
It's been a roller coaster, things with C. It got really really bad, pretty close to done, and then we went to Ireland together. I finally got to see him after 4 very long months. And it was wonderful, and at times...less than great, but truly, always wonderful. Because how could we not be in wonder? There, in that beautiful land that was for him all new, and for me some new, some bittersweetly reminiscent, with rainbows all around, truly how could we not be in awesome wonder? We were there, exploring and learning and loving, together. And we were oh so happy being together.
That was our fantasy escape. A place detached from the rest of our reality, where we could just be happy. Now we're back to the other reality, which in truth, with him still being in Afghanistan, is not a regular reality either...it's the other extreme. Instead of being together 24/7, with no stress, and surrounded by beauty, we are apart 24/7, with him under immense stress, surrounded by war. And I'm here, trying to live my "normal" reality and mantain a relationship that has no definition.
I thought we were doing well. Despite everything, I really thought things were going well. Then some stuff came up, and we didn't really have the time or means to truly deal with it, discuss it, and resolve it. Then some more stuff came up, we both got sick, and now I just don't even know.
We had a conversation tonight on skype. It was way late on his end, and he is way overtired and stressed. But the issues aren't going anywhere, so we tried to fix things. We talked, for hours, and we both visited angry, confused, hurt, and frustrated several times. We had to end the conversation when exhaustion overtook him. Of course, then I also felt guilty. (Always a pleasant flavor to add to the stew.)
And it's so frustrating now when I think about it...why is it so difficult??!?! We love each other, very much. Why isn't it just easy after that? And I laugh, cuz that's just not the way. I keep going back to the thoughts about control. Am I trying to control things again? Is that where my anxiety lies? Is it truly fear of betrayal or abandonment that makes me nervous, or is it just that I have no control?
I was reading some of Terri's old blogs and remembered the time she talked about trying to force our ideas of how things should be onto life. (It doesn't work, in case you were wondering.) Yet we still try. We trick ourselves so that we don't realize that's what we're doing...but it always comes 'round and bites us in the end. I am replaying the conversation I had with C tonight over and over again in my head...rereading the chat messages, trying to make sense of it all. It doesn't make sense, the whole thing baffles me completely. I caught myself saying "this isn't how it's supposed to be" somewhere deep in the caverns of my brain. Where exactly did I get the notion that I have any say in how it's supposed to be?
I think what happens is that we practice flowing, and accepting, and learning and growing, and sometimes we hit that groove...and things flow so smooth in the groove that we think we're in control....and then we forget how to flow all over again.
So that's where I'm at now. I'm trying to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and ask the questions again and see where I'm headed and why. And truthfully, at the moment all I can see is a big mess. Ah well, we keep gettin' the lesson 'til we learn it, right?
Found this Rumi tonight:
and just the moment
when you are all confused
leaps forth a voice
hold me close
i'm love and
i'm always yours
I need to ponder this for a while.
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