Thursday, April 16, 2009

Vulnerable today

Yesterday the weather was beautiful. 70 degrees with a blue sky and slight breeze. We went with friends to the park so the kids could ride their bikes and play on the toys. They smiled and screamed and laughed. We watched the birds on the pond--the usual ducks and Canadian geese and an unusual blue heron--as they listed about and ate and finally flew away. I was energetic and happy. I didn't need a nap. We played and read books and I looked them in the eyes and told them how much I loved them.

Today it is 38 degrees and cloudy. Even though you can't see the rain it is falling--a fine mist that you don't even realize is veiling your sight until you look down and see the ground is wet and you are wet and everything is cold. It will be snowing by noon. The spring snow is going to kill the blossoms on the fruit trees and maybe even the lilacs. This is spring in Colorado.

The weather has put me in a funk. Since the clouds hid the sunrise my body doesn't realize it's supposed to be awake. It makes me feel like a ghost. I am lonely and missing everyone today--especially and inexplicably my little sisters, the one who lives in Wisconsin and the one who died. It made me cry when I dropped my oldest off at kindergarten, although I smiled until I was alone outside the building so she wouldn't know. I feel like I'm in limbo. Like I have to will myself into reality. But I'm not sure that I want to.

Or maybe I feel like a jelly donut. Like I can't contain my being. Like there's too much going on inside me, my emotions are stuffed too tight. Whenever I look at my three year old or listen to my 1.5 year old talk my heart swells with love and I can't breathe and it feels good but it hurts too. I'm all soft and squishy with my insides oozing out of places they aren't supposed to be. It makes me a feel a little sick.

Or maybe I'm a turtle who's lost her shell. I am smaller than I ever realized I was and I'm unprotected and no matter where I go or what I do I won't ever be at home. May Swenson called this "Living Tenderly." Going without a shell is like wearing my skin inside out so the nerve endings are sticking out where the hair should be and I am reeling with the sensations.

That's what today is like. I'm gritting my teeth and taking it slow. I'm taking deep breaths and chanting my mantra (I can go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. Yes, it's the first line of the Desiderata. My therapist said I was the first patient she ever had who quoted poetry to her while meditating. I think she should have paid me for that visit.) I'm trying to find reasons to smile. I'm trying to find places to store my emotions, so they can cool and condense and soak back into the water table of my heart, instead of letting them boil off into the ether. That way I'll have them when I need them.

4 comments:

Misty Lynne said...

The cloud cover has put me in a rather melancholy mood too. It makes me want to wallow in one way or another, not get up in the morning, take a long bath, do nothing, etc. But I can't. Even so, everything feels sluggish.

Your post also made me want to share. My husband and I don't use poetry to express our moods, but we do use music, mostly instrumental, to do it. (We're both huge on soundtracks). Here's one of our favorite rainy day songs from Miazaki's Spirited Away. It's from the scene where she takes a train ride through the wet county side after a major flood. Beware, it's very melancholy. Here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMCFsPwzIs4

Charlotte said...

The weather has that effect on me too! I have to say that I liked your jelly donut analogy the best. I often feel that way. Too much emotion, too little room.

I know what you mean about Christine too. I had a pang a couple of days ago when mom commented on my site - her first time ever - and she picked teh username "yellow daisy." Yeah.

Kelly said...

I walked my kids to school today in the faint drizzle, carrying a gigantic brightly colored umbrella with all of the colors of the rainbow. Walking in the rain, carrying those colors, made me smile. But, yeah, when I got back home, the house was dreary and I haven't gotten anything done.

Elizabeth-W said...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Spirited Away! :)