snippets of conversation, thought

each of these could be an essay, perhaps a poem.  they may show up in later entries in a different form.  perhaps they are prompts for new conversations, new thoughts.  i have three days in a row in which to think and write, owing to needing to rest both of my ankles simultaneously resulting in unplanned hibernation and a pleasant retreat of sorts.  

"Visiting, Angels" thoughts on caregiving.  yes, i know the angels in this company logo are supposed to refer to the one giving care, but more often than not i think it is the angels we show up for, or even perhaps, more largely, who show up as witnesses to all of us.  it seems natural, if not difficult, to care for one another as in my great-grandmother's day.  she'd have bread rising on the counter, be tossing feed to the chickens, and tending to her in-law in the next room.  this week a man told me about caregiving for his wife being the hardest thing he'd ever done (and he was a homicide detective, police/fireman, and on the biohazard HAZMAT team in his working life!) it puts me in mind of the toxic layers of "protective" gear we have put between us and what it means to be essentially human. have i ever changed a catheter?  of soul, yes.  in actuality, no.  and i wonder about the levels of care a person requires and how they are at once one in the same and yet distinct (mind, soul, and body).

"in Elegant Proportion" receiving a calligraphed poem from one such woman i was on a caregiving team for.  i held her hand in real life.  saw a photo of it just after her final breath.  and another photo just 30 minutes after.  the same hand that penned such exquisite works in homage to beauty.  it's hard to wrap my mind around the corporeal hand that wrote it and the existential vanishing (or transformation, for nothing truly vanishes, is just equally exquisitely and perpetually recycled) of it and what it leaves behind and how we are all diminishing outwardly yet with the potential to be renewed in spirit daily.  i've 'seen' how the brightest comet of a being is housed in what i can only describe as a dried-out corn husk, their spirit tethered like a balloon to their body, yet bobbing about a foot above their head, restlessly, seeking release.  and i've felt their presence like an imprint long after, like the glowing of something battery-powered when it's charging, but in reverse.  mysterious.

"Einstein & the hair salon" not only does my stylist give fantastic haircuts, but she is smart as a whip. i do relish when i'm the last client of the day so we can have open-ended, un-edited philosophical conversation.  this week it was "can the present, past, and future exist at the same time?"  short of tape-recording our banter, i'll be thinking on this one for a long while.  it relates, though differently, to the above in terms of metaphysics.  

"hearts and still more hearts" even though i've been seeing hearts since 1992 in clouds, mud puddles, rocks, etc. it still causes me to wonder how, when my foot bumps a bowl of cat water while house-sitting, that it spills in a perfect heart on the hardwood floor when it should have dissipated, run into the cracks between floorboards, or spilled in an oblong, irregular puddle (?!)

"talking to the dead" see also "in Elegant Proportion" and "Einstein & the hair salon".  nothing weird or ghostly per se, although death itself is and always will be an odd one.  just the sneaking suspicion that people aren't gone in the sense that we think or imagine.  it seems to me they continue on wholly well albeit on a different plane.  it also seems to me no harm in asking them questions or continuing to forge a relationship with them based on sight/presence of heart.

"it's our first time here" it is, indeed, everyone's first run at life.  my cousin said in a YouTube video he made recently, "cut people some slack and tell them that you love them."  in terms of people behaving badly, thankfully our story is more than the sleight of hand tactics currently at play in modern society (there is nothing new under the sun, only new versions of people behaving both well and badly).  what happens when, like aging tendons in my case, the rubber band of society can no longer stretch and, instead, strains or tears?  who do i mean when i say "we" and how can we pause to heal, in the words of a wise poet i just listened to, "with this hope that i insist on holding"?  therein lies the necessary tension and skill it requires to hold two seemingly opposing things in a both/and. ("she had some horses she loved.  she had some horses she hated.  these were the same horses"--Joy Harjo).

"on fear" we are only naturally wired to be afraid of two things:  loud sounds and falling.  the rest is learned.  how can we unlearn fear?  love and fear cannot both occupy the same space, right?  i saw the despair and ultimate loss of life in a friend who was unable to reset her nervous system.  her system no longer knew the difference between being at rest and our ancestral urge to run when being pursued by a predator.  there was no convincing her sweet system that a jaguar wasn't chasing her every single day and no one's adrenaline was meant to sustain that chronically. even just naming what we feel or what is going on can be a grounding place to start.

"nouns and verbs" i can't stop thinking about how a woman (noun) who prayed (verb) became, herself, a prayer.  this too is mysterious.

stay tuned...