(nablopomo #18) sit with what’s been stirred

(begun this morning, and I’m just sharing it now. sometimes hard times mean the post comes late.)

All morning I’ve thought I’ve heard winter storms — just now, there’s a scraping, rumbling sound, and I’m imagining the snowplow pushing past the apartment building, clearing the road from the night’s storm. Last night, it was wind, and in my sleep, I heard the hard blowing from northern New England storms, the heavy wind, the push of snow and ice. It’ll be a surprise to go out this morning into the cool fog of California, and not a white winter wonderland. Something in my body is ready for hibernation, possibly.

This morning I’ve got the deep tired that comes when your body is working overtime and your heart and head are, too. I’m ready for a break. When do we get a break?

The other morning I woke up having dreamed of you. I tried to get back into sleep, into that moment we were sharing, but there was some other interaction in the way. I had become one of two guys who were having sex, and neither one was you.

The prompt today, at nablopomo, is asking for the happiest moment in my life so far.

I’m beginning to read When Things Fall Apart, finally — because there are things falling apart, inside and out, in different ways. Places where I thought I was well, I was fine, I was together — how do I want to say this?

This is what happens when you move into self care, what I have been afraid would happen: things come apart. The things I’ve been hiding from, they show themselves to me. The stuff that’s been stuck: it starts to move. the uncomfortable stuff I’ve been running from, working too hard to pay attention to: it’s all still with me, and finally, when I slow down and let the needles work, when I let  practitioner’s hands on me, when I ask about this pain in my neck and shoulders and what it’s holding, when a new therapist asks new questions — all that pushes up and through and into consciousness and is here for me to deal with.

Damnit.

(Not really, but still.)

So, a quiet, offline day. A baking day, a day to sit with what’s been/being stirred.

How do you take care when you’re (metaphorically) way out in the middle of the ocean and you can’t see land anymore?

Be easy with you, ok? It’s ongoing practice. It’s what I practiced today. Still takes work, even after these many years.