Monday, August 3, 2015

Figments and such

The out of sorts feeling continues, but I am keeping it as under wraps as I can, sometimes less successfully than at other times. Does anyone else ever get this dull weariness of self, this longing to tweak reality by turning up the color and intensity the way you can do in a photograph? What about smoothing out the rough edges of human interaction in the day to day? I don't understand why I feel so deeply sad at my core, tender to the touch, gray and glued together, but poorly. Anything can feel like a sling or arrow, even when not meant as such.

Why can't I let the hard moments just roll over and off me like the figments of interpretation I suspect they are. It is me, after all, who decides what is difficult, and what to let go. Is it grief from the death of my mother just surfacing? That's odd, because what I am aware of is an experience of peace when I think of her now. I feel relief that she is no longer suffering. I imagine her laughing with beloveds on the other side, and I am grateful that I had her for as long as I did. But now the tears are flowing so I must be on to something.

Summer has begun to feel long and drawn out. At the beginning, I was glad to have no plans after traveling back and forth to the Caribbean six times last year to be with my mom and attend to her business, but now, I just want to escape my life for a bit. I fantasize about jetting off to Paris on a dime, setting myself up in a charming Airbnb studio and writing my book while taking in the view, going out only at dusk to sit in a sidewalk cafe, and maybe pick up a few things for the next morning.

My husband, sensing my mood, walked with me around the gardens where we live over the weekend. We sat on a bench and chatted, then strolled and took pictures. I held his hand over the uneven ground where my bone-on-bone hip joint doesn't swivel as needed, and we laughed remembering when we were engaged but not yet married, seeing an old couple holding hands at the airport in Antigua. We were upstairs on the waving gallery with family and friends to see someone off. In those days, you still gathered up there and waved at the plane until it was out of sight. And this old couple was also on the waving gallery, walking slowly and holding hands, and my love and I remarked on how sweet they were.

"I hope we're holding hands like that at their age," I said out loud, to which our Uncle Al, the godfather of our relationship, guffawed. He was in his early sixties then; he is in his high eighties now. He patted us both on the shoulder and he said, "Trust me, you will be holding hands. You will need to hold each other up!" So yeah, we held hands as we walked. Don't take this sadness inside me as the whole truth.

Here are some of the photos I took of our wild and overgrown garden. I posted them on Insta but I like to see them writ large here. How lucky we are to be able to stroll among plants and trees while living in this cacophonous city.









15 comments:

  1. I think it's okay to allow ourselves to feel sad when we need to as long as we don't wallow in it. Those feelings arise for a reason, needing to be released. Honor that and then let that go to allow for space for the good to return. Hugs to you.

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  2. I love your pictures and I wish your sadness would just go away. Last year when I just couldn't take it anymore, I did book a short trip away and it did make all the difference in the world. This past spring, I had a friend from Kamloops, BC come and take a short trip to stay with me so she could feel better, and I believe she did. We had fun time together. I hope you can take a short trip to feel better too.

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  3. It makes me so happy that you have some nature to stroll in, to restore your soul.
    And yes, grief can come and go in so many different forms.
    Glen and I hold each other up. We do.
    Be well, my sweet.

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  4. i love the area you are close to, go walking in. oddly, when i was nearing the end of my marriage and starting to yearn for more wildness, to think of leaving the city, my ex-husband and i often walked around the cathedral area, the far northern reaches of Central Park, the reservoir. we were always happiest away from other people, near trees and water. i am glad that you have a man you love to walk there with, too. it always helps. these periods of emotional churning is how we live; not the happiest part, or the easiest, but important. maybe--is this silly?--like birth, over and over. take good care of yourself, dear angella.

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  5. It doesn't matter that your mom was old and ready to die. She was your mom and you will always be her child.
    Just sit with the sadness and welcome it like a friend.

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  6. I do know the sadness. And that it isn't all of you. I wonder sometimes if it's chemical or genetic. Whatever it is, it's so so real. I do know it too well.

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  7. I had left the above comment just as my computer was going all wonky. I hit publish before I should have. I just spent way too long trying to fix whatever it is that was the problem.
    Anyway, don't push your sadness aside. It will just come back harder because it wants to be known. Welcome it and sit with it. II know it feels so terrible and running from it and trying to manage it feels like it will make it stop but it doesn't.

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  8. Your garden space is lovely and Birdie's right. The more you try to avoid a feeling, the more it festers. sit with it and see if things level a bit. Hugs.

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  9. The weariness of self is so common for me. I talk about this in my novel when two characters meet, how their held gaze eases- for just a moment- the burden of personhood, of one soul tucked into one body, bearing it alone. Nature is so important. Did you see that documentary I linked in my recent blog post, the one about Alice Walker? You should watch it. It's so much about nature.

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  10. Is it possible to go to Paris? Those Airbnb rentals are affordable, you know.

    I'm sorry for your sadness. I know it's not the whole truth of you, but I'm sorry it is there. Cheryl Strayed had a wonderful piece in The Sun about grieving her mother. Maybe you could relate.
    http://thesunmagazine.org/archives/2192

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  11. Grief happens regardless. You miss your mom. You don't miss the old woman who was suffering, you miss the many mom's you had over the course of your life. I miss the mum that liked to walk with me.

    And trees and gardens and nature are wonderful for a grieving soul.

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  12. I have no wisdom to offer for sorrow, but it hasn't diluted your photographic acuity.

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  13. I love the hand-holding story. It's alarming how far away being older seems when we're young -- and how fleeting youth seems when we're older. If you know what I mean. Love the flowers!

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  14. Lovely pictures. I can relate to your weariness, sometimes I wonder what is wrong with me that I seem to see with such monochromatic negativity so often and often times feeling so bad about my "dysfunction" can make me feel worse. However, when I'm able to maintain a healthier perspective, I remember that I am a sensitive person, and that being sensitive is not necessarily a fault, flaw, or weakness though it can be trying. Maybe the grief is resurfacing in a new way, and/or maybe your mind is making connections you aren't consciously aware of yet but you feel the emotional ripples. Sometimes I feel down and only after talking with the hubbo or hearing a news spot do I realize it was something outside myself causing the sadness and not really my "faulty wiring" ;) Whatever it is, I hope it passes through you easily. Sometimes all we can do is brace for impact and let the emotional waves crash through. It sounds like you're doing exactly what you need to, holding a hand and enjoying the flowers :) I think I will go find some nature and love myself this afternoon :) Thanks!

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  15. Your photos are pure loveliness. Be well. I hope the weariness passes.

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