Figuring Out Life While Aging
“April is the cruelest month” - T S Eliot Green mist rubbing raw branches, sap pulsing demands, taunting winds pushing unavoidable changes. Absent again. the old path blocked, obscured, closing off. Blossoms mocking this waiting time. What new fruit will grow now?
Walking through the grounds of the demolished building I wonder how to describe grief. There’s the sudden voice wobbles, of course, and the repeated resentments of accusations that I’m doing so well. as though sleeping, eating, and keeping the house going deserves some special commendation. Sometimes I wonder if maybe it shows me being unfeeling, not caring. I wonder how grief behaves: the irrational refusals and avoidances; not wanting company, or to be alone; resenting the new tasks. So download another distraction, wonder again who I am now, and what I might want not to do or, maybe, choose to do.
The sharp chill of a cold spring day as Good Friday reigns over Easter.
Birdsong again, and green shoots - the earth gentled by sunshine and rain: Rebirth.
I’m remaking myself alone, discarding patterns, forging others: Listening to waves, smelling rain-damp earth, talking back to crows, ignoring stumbles, I explore paths previously unsought.
Under noise, I almost hear the music. Walking down stairs, I sense a faint perfume. In the dark, my eyes cling to the fading ember. Consolations.
On the porch, at night in winter: A street away, the scrape of skates, the slap of a puck.
The terrible sting of sugar doesn’t erase my parents smiling into the camera, a cemetery behind them, my grandparents gravestone beside them. They all lie there now.
Anger is easier than being sad, like a boil you can ignore till it erupts. Grief locks your time into a blur of absence that can't be released..
All my necessary rituals hold me, keep me standing. All my necessary rituals keep me rigid and stuck. All my necessary rituals are collapsing letting me fall, bruising me. What rituals can support what I need now?
Learning Living 