June 25, 2011

I find myself longing for a quiet mind,  a silent lake.  Awakened at 2:00 and reviewing the last few weeks, today.  My dear aunt Mildred left this world at 96.  Then Marley, 10 years old, had reached the end of his battle with spleen cancer and we had to put him to sleep at the vet with his longtime partner, Arianna, standing by. Framing these events, I watch the gradual slide into emotional separation of my son, 37, from his still-loved wife, two children around whose lives they orbit.  I listened, held him, kept my words at a minimum because I see he is all talked out, empty, and my body aches with the memory of my own solar plexus wrenched when his dad and I let go of each other, the ones married at 18 and faced each other a decade later, toe-to-toe as if in parallel worlds where we glimpsed the other in mirror moments, remembering our growing up together but unable to imagine a future, grown apart.  The gulf too wide, mistrust too deep, exhausted with talk admitting there were no more gardens to plant and harvest.

My son is like a swimmer now, gone as far as he can, so spent that giving himself up to the relentless waves would feel like a blessing, a gift, forced into an altered state, a sinking redemption. You walk, talk, but your body is not your own.  You are reduced to synapses firing at their will, your brain carries on but you hear it as if disembodied; the survival instincts take over, you eat and sleep only when the body grinds you down, demands it.  Food is a chore, smiling requires superhuman power where it used to be effortless; you hate, you love fiercely, you cry until surely your eyes can't produce any more tears, and then you cry some more.  And when you feel you can't do more, life drags you like a broken toy into your new world.

The ambient app on my smart phone has 35 sounds to choose from to help me sleep; I only want to hear the sound of my boy laughing, before the fall.

April 26, 2011

I started the day with a walk, a dog and a little rain.  These three companions were the day's frame it turned out.  Easy to look back--a pair, four feet and wet.  Tracks were left and then erased, sounds were lifted and carried away.  The snowy egret had not arrived, the Great Blue Herons were still in their nest tree in Midway, dreamy and wet with their young.  Returning to the house, the dog and I sat quietly, dry, smelling like dew and day.