Breathing and Reading for the Rest of My Life

 
Today was a beautiful day, outside my house and inside my head. I have been trying to spend a bigger part of each day in reality, the physical world where you clean stuff and hug your dogs and sit outside under the trees and possibly even talk to another person, to be present for other people, rather than walking the labyrinth inside my head and on my computer screen all day and all night.

It feels good, it is good to be alive, to be at least a little more open to the whispers of infinity and completeness you can hear if you just stay still and listen. 

And I'm relearning how to read. I really thought I'd lost for good the ability to concentrate, and not stop after every word because I lost the thread or a thought or memory intruded. Maybe meds, maybe my bipolar brain, maybe age or loss of the ability to imagine someone else's feelings and the structure of a text - maybe they explained why I couldn't read anymore. 

But actually it's still there. If I put down the Internet and open a book of printed paper instead of being willingly held hostage and bombarded with 15 second flashes of "information" for hours and hours every day - my captor having trained my brain to crave this passing show of images and uncrafted words - I can actually still read! I can engage with another mind, follow a long and curving train of thought, and see with my inner eye Keats' "beauty that is truth."

I'm alive in the world and I can read. With love surrounding me too, my life is full.

And now I'm going to walk my dogs and feel the moonlight.on my skin. Then I'll read in bed with a fan turning over my head, and another day like this one will come tomorrow.

I brought someone - three  someones - into this world through my body. Now I'm ushering someone out of this world through her body - the same one that brought ME into this world. Spirit flows to flesh and flesh to spirit, like a river running both ways always and forever.

Rest in Peace

Dorothy (Dottie) Pottle 

July 9, 1921

June 22, 2014

Milestones, Millstones

Well, so I haven't been to sleep yet.5:30 a.m., My son is graduating today at 1 p.m. after a 15 year slog through the swamps of special ed with only shreds of his self-esteem left. My daughter and I went to my mother's this afternoon so my sister could go to the grocery store - they moved a hospital bed in last night and my mother is now practically immobile, on morphine, confused, in and out of consciousness. She is disintegrating and turning into dust in front of our eyes. Her eyes light up when my daughter comes. She tells her how much she likes her boyfriend over and over - she forgets she said it - and tonight she told her how pretty she is and that she wants her to know how much she loves her. My mother is not a sentimental woman. We all cried.

And all of that is swirling around my head, making my skull ache and my foot jiggle and my mind dream dreams of death, my mother's, my own, my husband's (but I can't go there), my kids, even my 4 dogs. The terrible uncertainly of when these utter certainties will occur ... 

For my sister, it is normal that a daughter takes care of her mother unto death. It's what is done. I could never do that, even if I had a close sunny devoted relationship with my mother - which I don't. So that makes me, what. Selfish. My sister doesn't lay this on me - I draw my own conclusions. It is true, I am a very selfish person, because I am so vulnerable to being hurt. I am "unstable" and I have to safeguard my equilibrium and shelter myself from turbulence. I hate that about myself, but there it is. I'm a de facto narcissist. If I don't wrap myself up in myself I would just bleed through my skin when you touch me, and crumble. Now I am thinking, well, I'm just going to crumble now. This is maybe what real life is all about. Crumbling, Disintegrating. Turning to dust.
 

Letters

Miss Manners answered a letter today about how to react sympathetically to a Facebook post indicating someone's sad or has sad things going on. Clicking "Like" seems rude or callous. Her reply: "To express sympathy, it is essential to demonstrate that you are thinking about the person." The computer interface is designed to keep time spent on any one thing or one person to a minimum.

So, she says, write a letter. If you care deeply about the person, write a letter.

I have all the letters anyone has sent me since it became incomprehensible to sit down and write one. There are only a handful. Before that, I didn't keep them because I wrote and received so many I didn't realize they were precious - and it never occurred to me that one day they'd be like extinct exotic animals. They're more meaningful than photos even because the person's mind and soul are uniquely present in them.

I still write letters when my heart is very full or when someone else has written me with a full heart. I'm curious: When was the last time you wrote a letter?

Living in the World

Today was a beautiful day, outside my house and inside my head. I have been trying to spend a big part of each day in reality, the physical world where you clean stuff and hug your dogs and sit outside under the trees and possibly talk to another person, be present for other people, rather than walking the labyrinth inside my head and on my computer screen all day and all night. 

It feels good, I feel alive, and I'm relearning how to read. I thought I'd lost for good the ability to concentrate, because of meds, because of my bipolar brain, because of age, but actually it's still there. If I put down the Internet and open a book of printed paper instead of being held hostage and bombarded with 15 second flashes of "information" for hours and hours every day - I can still read! 

I'm alive in the world and I can read; that is most of happiness for me.

And now I'm going to walk my dogs and feel the moonlight.on my skin. Then I'll read in bed with a fan turning over my head, and another day will come tomorrow.