Figuring Out Life While Aging
I walk my sorrow
on familiar streets
I am leaving.
My body morphs;
soul changes stretch me,
shaking me out of my shell.
Strange energies arise;
suddenly I find myself
reaching forward.
Time spirals as I approach
leaving,
both releasing and opening.
After happy-ever-after comes the long goodbye, wrenching and awkward. The first year is numbness, overwhelmed with tasks, and learning new ways The second is weeping and anxiety; tasks continue to overwhelm and yet soothe. A structure to the daze.
The dogs are walking their owners in the rain-marked streets. The air is heavy and thick with longing and aloneness.
Bitter chocolate on the tongue, surrounded by shared choices, I hug our lost times, by myself.
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.
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.
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?
Writing at the raw edge opens the dimness for a brief glimpse of my now. Writing at the raw edge unlocks the gates of my whirling for a moment. Writing at the raw edge spews my dark lava onto a screen for a moment of now.
Learning Living 