Snow fall

   It is snowing. I heard tell this morning that it was supposed to snow all week. As Christmas is approaching rapidly, this makes me happy.  I love the beginning of winter with its new white blanket that softens the world. It hides all the ugly bits as they lie dormant waiting for Spring and their transformation. I say ugly, but that doesn't feel quite right. The world has less obvious signs of life and light and it constricts our movements. We stay closer to home to hunker down in front of the fire. Cuddly blankets and beds call louder to our sleepy souls. I don fuzzy slippers and dream of frothy eggnog. I await my children and their zeal, so that we can trim our tree this aft. It is a lovely tree, that I know will shine forth love, excitement and promise before the day is through. Crisp smiles and laughter helped to find it yesterday. Perhaps that will be a memory that will follow the girls as they grow. My memory trees held hot chocolate and sleigh rides. This is a new tree though and new memories to be built.

   So let it snow and cover up the world and all that is in it. I am ready for my dormancy. I am ready for thoughts of transformation. I am ready for beauty and love. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

tonight

   It sometimes makes me wonder why certain people come into our lives. As of late I seem to have found new audiences for my story. As I recount tales from my life they become large as life and I am back there again. A friend this evening asked if I had always been this way or if I felt it was a byproduct of my grief. An interesting question. I try not to cry or get too emotional, but I am a leaky soul. I believe I have always been, but am a little squishier now. Are my tears a byproduct of my grief? I had it suggested by grief counsellors that I probably suffered from post traumatic stress disorder after Brad died. The moments from the last few days of his life are ingrained on my brain. I can feel the raw emotions when I go back and examine those days, those hours. They are more real than the person sitting in front of me. I am more there in the past than with the person listening to my tale. It is not a tale. It is a reality that I survived. It was shocking and surreal and incredibly painful. What I am slowly trying to learn and feel is that that moment is past. I do not exist in that moment any more. I can only exist in today. Now is the only thing I have control over. Remembering crisis points sends me back and reeling though. It was really sad. It was scary. It was surreal. I did not ask or want that to be a part of my reality, but it happened anyway. I do not need to have my chest constrict or heart race, as I fall to the floor hearing of a new grief. I do not need to stand paralyzed watching as my husband screams in blinding pain as his brain is attacked by his cancerous body. Unable to do anything. That was then. It has become a living nightmare that I can replay at will. I don't need to. It happens on occasion, but I try not to. It hurts. Grief counsellors have suggested that at 2 years into my grief, it is still fresh. I wonder when the freshness of it will wear off. I am not hit with the raw edges as often any more and am looking towards today and a little of tomorrow.
   I have run out of words.
   Tonight they have all been said

Sameness

Sunshine stares over a street scene of sameness

Am I sameness today?

Wine mulled and sips supped

beside decadence in decades past.

Our stories streamed past ancient dreams that grew

and faltered and changed

of own accord.

reasons pondered by some, but not always many

Am I sameness today?

Heroes, figures and forgers

they live past, present and future

We pull them into own circus

Dance with and laugh at

Gasp in horror, not to look away.

this is us, this was me, this was you

was meant to be

destiny

good, bad, ugly

Trail my hand in God's dream

choice and fate meet

turn carelessly

free

A wise woman told me

let go of yesterday and tomorrow

they are beyond our control

Today is the only thing we truly hold

and Today I found a friend.

a metta meditation

May I be free from harm.
May I be healed.
May I be loved.
May I be at peace.
 
May you be free from harm.
May you be healed.
May you be loved.
May you be at peace.
 
May the world be free from harm.
May the world be healed.
May the world be loved.
May the world find peace.
 
 
May you all find love,truth and healing in your heart, so that you can go forth and shine that light into the world. Namaste

a day; a life lived

   Hmm, what fabulous thoughts that run through my head are worth spilling forth this evening? Dare I comment on the Christmas decorations that went up today, that thrilled my girls when they came home this evening? Carols graced my ears and put a remembered smile on my lips. Heritage and history float in the air on the magic of the season within.

   Or shall I remark on my yoga practice today, that is always a highlight of my week. It shines in my life as an integral lifeline and sanity. This is as much for the emotional support I receive from my beloved Wellspring members, as for the actual practice itself. I could not face the day today without holding in my heart the thought of loving kindness and grace that has filled me up on a little mat sitting on the floor. The ting of Valerie's tingsha instantly melts my heart and releases unknown tensions from the day. (Tingsha creates a meditative vibration but is more commonly used for calling one into the here and now. The striking sound of the Tingsha has the ability to call one forth as well as clearing any disturbing energies in the moment. The Tingsha brings clarity and spaciousness to any space - http://www.stonesforbones.com/page/934329) Namaste!

   What about my conversation with a fellow yogini who has also lost a partner, fallen to cancer? Her husband was 59 and died three weeks after being diagnosed. The future is always out there, but it is ripped away in the face of this insidious disease. It is hard to truly write that though, as I have had many unexpected gifts in this journey. One of them has been me. The me that is here right now with you sitting at your computer reading these words. Cancer destroyed my world as I knew it, but handed back the seeds to germinate a new one. My new life still seems to fit loosely, but I am allowing myself to try it on. I did not want it, but the wretched gift continued to lie staring from the floor where I left it. It will not be ignored. The gift has been the sharing of it. A hard gift that is prickly to hold on most occasions. A gift that I cannot give back. And I won't. I shared my gift with a fellow journeyer this afternoon as the rain began to sprinkle down softly on our heads. She seemed so strong for so early into her journey. That strength is a garment pulled on for the benefit of a world that does not want to see our pain. I know she has had her bleak moments, but has the will somehow to work through them. I guess I do to. Don't mistake me for feeling poorly as compared to my compatriot. I know I am further along than she. I know the putting on of face for the day only to loose the stomach for it by night fall. Tears by the ocean have washed through me. That is not today though. I feel and remember.

   Perhaps I remember more today for the scab I picked at yesterday. Yes, I felt it all day, despite the Christmas crooning that tempted soothed spirits. After dinner last night conversation flowed with dear friends over a bottle of wine. The children were downstairs, lulled by a movie and our conversation somehow stumbled into my memory land. How it gets there I wonder somehow, but I have been told I have the gift of gab. When encouraged stories flow. When some of the painful memories spill forth, they must be followed through from beginning to end. I have had times when a story starts, but the thread is broken and I feel lost and broken. I have to let it out when I get there. As I tell my tales I am right back there. I feel glazed over going into this inner world of memory that seemingly tortures me. The stories must be told though. Last night I wandered through the day that my cousin was torn from my life. At fifteen it was much too early and too harsh an experience being five months on the heel of Brad's death. It led to another death, this a living kind. My in-laws dissolved from my world at this time and I still tell the tale. I lay in bed thinking on them last night. They still haunt my thoughts and I offer up my pain and regret to the ethers. A shame, a shame. Loss of a life, to bring on a new. I think that is where my rambling will end tonight. No grand epiphanies tonight. I take a kiss from the wind and curl into my pillow with it.

sweet dreams...