It’s evening, and I have stumbled so far out of the groove, I seem to be floating through the day. And once again there are things I cannot write here. Things that push most other thoughts into the deep pockets of my mind. I managed to make dinner. To write an email. But honestly, I cannot account for the day.
Things will fall back to earth again, settle somehow. And we will go on. At least I am sure of that now. The chaos – the order – as though a god is shaking dice in a cup and spilling them over the table. Coming back to do it again when the weather moves in. Eh. He shrugs his shoulders and wanders away from the table again. And we’d be foolish to try do anything but roll with it. What does trying even mean under these kinds of circumstances? Most often I find myself wanting to undo a random event. Like trying to wish an earthquake into never having happened. Wishing away cancer. Or even a broken trust.
Roll with it. Tumble with it. I’ve heard that drunk people survive accidents more often than sober people, because their bodies are too slow to resist. (I don’t know if this is actually true.) The wu wei of wine.
Acceptance is a difficult word to define in an experiential way. Accept this gift. Accept this poison. Odd fact: gift is poison in Norwegian.
When we accept the situation, do we hold it in our arms like a blanket with pox? Something that can’t be avoided, something that can’t be undone. We’re in a locked room with cinder block walls that grate the skin off our bodies if we push against them. Better to accept the situation.
Things aren’t really that dark. And they are. It is like a running stitch through fabric: up and down, visible, invisible. It holds everything together – not darkness, but life. Life runs above and below a plane of equilibrium. And there are moments – there are points passing through – of peace.
I think the trouble that I’m having is the letting go. Letting the thoughts go. Slipping through unburdened. Accepting needs to be a matter of not receiving. Or receiving and dropping, like a blanket from your forearms and onto the dirt. Accepting the situation while refusing the “gift”.
I’m angry. My mind is foggy and thickly empty but my body is a coil of snake, muscles rippling. Tight. I should have run sometime during this lost day.
For now, I’ll sit with Leonard until he gets too warm and leaves me for the hardwood floor. By then I might be less “hissig”. I might be looser. I might be able to let go of the fight and spend the evening with E. without dumping anything in his lap that he’d need to accept.
how many animals
fit under your diaphragm
turning heavily
in sleep then in a season
suddenly rip you apart
