Encouragement

Encouragement

Let yourself be the earth and the days be weather.

Storms come, but they pass. Do not follow them.

Enjoy the sun. Notice the bees kiss the flowers

while you listen to a crow shout her opinions to the world.

What a gift, to be!!

-Kathryn Harper

Noticing

Day 5 after surgery feels pretty much like day 1. It's untethered to tasks beyond the bed and bathroom. 

I wrote that last sentence and ran out of steam. Noticing "I" am inside, waving my hand through the ether to grab onto another word only to find emptiness. And feeling flat about that. A state of being powered on but in standby mode.

In this physically diminished state what I've noticed over the past week is the daylong concert of birdsong. I'm unable to pair what I hear with the bird type, but there are at least a a dozen types of songbird singing their hearts out. And of course the wild turkeys and crows, oh my god the CROWS. Those assholes like to get started loudly around 5 a.m. and squawk for at least 90 minutes. At night I hear screeches of Barn Owls, eerie punctuations in the dark. Sometimes I hear Great Horned Owls giving the classic hoot-hooooot. 

When I sit really still, I feel my blood pulsing rhythmically through my body, and I notice the force is enough to shake my head minutely, a small vibration. 

My heart says hi. hi. hi. hi. hi.

Nesting

I am bone-tired at the moment. My surgery is one week from today, and I'll come home with T-Rex arms, unable to do much for the first couple weeks. So today I cleaned. Vacuumed and wet-mopped both stories, scrubbed my shower, cleaned the half-bath, laundered bath mats. I also finished putting away the now-empty rabbit hutch. 

It has not escaped my notice that this flurry of cleaning is an effort to manage anxiety. I'm a very casual housekeeper -- mostly definitely not a FlyLady devotee.

Awaiting Test Results

Awaiting Test Results

My name is Self (or Me-myself And I).
Today I feel like a held breath
waiting in the throat.
Sometimes I am a work of art.
Sometimes I am a tangled mess.
But always I am curious.
I ask the world, “How did I waste so much time?”
And the answer is

a held breath waiting in the throat.

--Kathryn Harper

Sacraments of the Morning

Sacraments of the Morning

Isn’t it enough
to feel a chill as you rise from a warm
bed, stumble to the bath and with
nimble fingers attend to your body’s
needs, button your shirt, to balance
as you put pants on one leg at a time?

Isn’t it enough
to hear the morning news, the coffee
maker gurgling as you eat your
Wheaties with skim milk, to listen in
the comfort and illuminated safety of
your kitchen as rain rattles the roof?

Isn’t it enough
to inhale the earth’s perfume of wet
dirt, worms, roses and jasmine blooms,
to smell even the faint fumes of the
world’s morning commute as you join
with humanity for the day’s business?

Isn’t it enough
to taste the fresh tender day and
savor the strong bitter brew from
your steaming paper chalice as
you await the train under the shelter 

with others huddled like pigeons?

Isn’t it enough
to observe the blur of cinderblock
fortresses adorned with graffiti, the
lonely artifacts of life strewn across
anonymous backyards, to notice the
window cat watching the morning?

-- Kathryn Harper

“Cold Rain, Warm Colours” by Fred Rune Rahm, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

The Choices That Create Isolation

"Those choices might seem minor, but they matter: To call a friend, or scroll on Instagram? To go to church, the weekly soccer game, or book club—or sleep in and scroll again? Today’s newsletter rounds up stories on the activities that bring us together, and the ones that keep us apart."

    -Isabel Fattal, The Choices That Create Isolation

Noticing

I was cleaning the sink the other evening, and when I pulled the stopper out of the soapy water, this large bubble was attached.

Naturally I whipped out my cell phone to take some photos. I like this one best (despite the shadow of my finger in the lower corner), because the reflective iridescence is beautiful. I see the kitchen windowpane at the top, and other indiscernible objects from the counter. It lasted several minutes; then a subtle shift in the air breached the bubble and *pop*, it was gone. 

I would categorize this as a glimmer -- a moment of fascination and joy.