Of Human Consciousness

The curse - an ostensible gift - of human consciousness is work, which inevitably breeds dissatisfaction. Why do we have awareness after all?

Reaching Out/Reaching in

Two days ago I went ot the post office, bought a book of stamps and mailed envelopes all over the country. Belated birthday cards, thank you notes, a CD, and hellos I had written and collected, unable to get them sent off for whatever reason. All was well; I felt sunny and busy and ran errands, did my volunteer work, did therapy, browsed at Cole Haan and went to Zumba. Yesterday I woke up to lassitude. Couldn't get out of my own way, slept and bathed, languid as a odelisk. Torpor turned to melancholy and I was out of sorts until I slept. Today dawned with a question mark. Would I feel more optimistic, more energetic? What would Friday bring? And then I thought about the responses that were already arriving by email and telephone call. Had I or the universe known that I would need comfort and reassuring? Coincidence or synchronicity? We send out our desires as well as our fears and hopes. It can be more intentional. Hear our pray. I felt gratitude and wondered about these mysteries.

So, it has come to this

all the unfulfilled intimations, the longing to nowhere, the sense of a road not built, led me to this place. finally.

"she slips through time, like zebra in the striped forest"

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) I am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Women: A Rant

Women who make pregnancy a Very Big Deal are the same women for whom everything is harrowing and stressful. Yes, it can be physically taxing. I know how lucky I am to not have been sick so far. Mentally and emotionally, however, I felt very weighed down, and at times so panicked I thought I might faint, or die from fear. But it honestly, it is what you make it. Your pregnancy is your own creation. If you want to worry about every little detail, every symptom, every anathema food item, it certainly can be all-consuming. If you are the sort of pain in the ass, high maintenance woman who demands back rubs and ice cream and needs everything just so in order to be happy, then pregnancy will be terrible for you and worse for the poor son of a bitch who married you. I would just like for once to hear someone echo my sentiments. Which are, essentially, it's fine. It's weird. And wonderful. Thrilling and paralyzing and bizarre and miraculous and beautiful and gross. And also, it's totally natural and what we are designed to do. I expect to encounter difficulty. Pain and discomfort and uglier manifestations of this other life beating inside me that makes it a little less lovely to walk around in my body. But acting so put out is nothing more than an act some women have adopted. I happen to have a different act. An "aren't I funny and one of the guys and aren't bitches crazy and dumb" trip that makes my life harder in some ways and better in others. But someone needs to stop perpetuating the notion that you stop being a normal person once pregnant. Because you don't. It's fine. I'm fine. You're fine. Think of anything else for a whole minute, read a book not about babies, listen loudly to music, have a shout at the sky, and stop complaining.

Books

I finished late summer reading weeks ago, and have begun Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (on kindle), and The Art of Travel by Alain de Bottom.

First Day

On Wednesday I went to Thornton Hall for my first day sitting with the old people. The Garden residents are an Alzheimer's population, with a median age of 75. One woman, Rite, short for Magarite, sat next to me and really listened, focused, reacted in real time, sang and recalled songs. But Sam my guide told me later she likely wouldn't remember any of it. Most of the others were near catatonic, though one woman, I think her name is June and missing a few front teeth, was happily chatting inanely as a madwoman before being taken away to her appointment at the beauty parlor.

Earlier that morning I found the Topsham Public Library, a new building with enough novels and a lot of light and picked three selections to bring, hopeful but uncertain. An Andy Rooney diatriabe, perhaps a little cliched but germaine, seemed like an ice-breaking opener. I found one that was self-evidently obervant, in his fashion, but that I liked; it was about names. Next, I had already decided I would read The Lady of Shalott. Whether they liked it or not. I like to read this poem aloud and for once I had a captive audience. I thought if nothing else the rhythm and cadence would be pleasant music for their ears and I got to use my very important poetry voice. I concluded with a Time Life collection of photography from the 1940s and 50s. Nostalgia and imagination, photographs that are literal but open to interpretation. We read about the rise of adolescent culture during World War II, teen dance and fashion trends. Some of them smiled.

I felt very comfortable from the beginning. Much like when I was so anxious to teach my first Nia class and then was completely in the moment and at ease during the hour, I was a little trepidacious that morning but it all cleared and was serene as soon as I started introducing myself. What luck! And what a revelation. It was so nice, even though it was frightening, and desperately sad and unbelievable what can become of an individual life and her once so strong brain. A sort of Zen exercise - immediately over and gone as soon as I'm done reading the words, if not sooner. It happened, but is fleeting, and when I am gone I've disappeared though the sound may linger. Does it resonate, or reverberate, or disappear into the ether altogether? I hope they experience a flash of peace or joy or relaxation. Maybe it's nothing like that at all.