Monday is rest day, so no running. And this morning I’m grateful: the wind is gusting wetly against the window. Fortunately, it hits the house at an angle and spares us the worst of it. I sit with my back to the cold and write while wrapped in a red blanket that was a gift from Di. The tealight is burning under a spiced Christmas tea mix I bought to try to get me in the mood.
It’s not working.
The coffee gets cold too quickly this morning. I’m on a second cup already, wondering how the minutes have been spent.
How I spent the minutes.
I’ve mostly been unraveling last night’s dreams. We got away for the weekend and stayed at a little bed and breakfast in a little town down south. Tiny wooden houses covered in Christmas lights, and on Sunday morning the bells peeled four times over the course of the morning. It was charming. Even in the rain.
I thought I’d put work behind me: relaxed. But last night my body pinched and twisted in frustrations and I woke in pain for the first time in a week. I’ve been sorting metaphors for real situations from outright fears and fictions. My subconscious still finds a defensive position familiar and comforting. My body, however, is no longer comfortable with this. It can no longer handle the effort of jousting with windmills.
I close my eyes and hum: haaaaaa. I imagine the gusting whipping the lake with white-tipped waves and then watch the whole world calm down. When the sun rises, the sky turns deep orange and pink. And all it if is mirrored on the still surface.
E. describes the weather this time of year as raw. When the cold feels much colder than measurements suggest, and it cuts through everything – wind or no wind.
On mornings like this, the sun rises behind a veil and the surface of the lake reflects the white, the wind. Still: haaaaaa. Because this is also true.
Even as the dancer moves across the stage, there is a stillness in the connection of her energy to the energy of the earth. A constant. There is the haaaaaa.
Because everything else changes around this one truth. And resting here in this point of reflection is the only option for peace.
what can I put in my mouth but rainwater and the truth? looking upward, the sun, a few wispy clouds, and a dream.
jobe