I’m going to write something because I’m tired of listening to the non-thoughts in my head and waiting passively for some external goodness to lift me out of this time of needing to be patient. Never mind that I could sing, or laugh on purpose, or that these insights have only come since I started tapping away at keys. I could sing Janis Joplin like we used to, even though the intense, naive longing won’t be the background and foundation of my emotions the way they were when Allison and I were twenty-something and waiting to see if we would make thirty. I could put on upbeat Bluegrass music and dance, back and forth in the RV. I would feel a tingling energy ripple through my limbs and surely a smile would form where now a drawn face acts as if I haven’t a choice on how to manage such a simple task as an upward turn of certain features.
I had an idea about writing Nine Acknowledgements, nine things I did in 2012 that I acknowledge respectfully rather than treating my efforts as an “of course” I did this and that. But I spent much of 2012 hovering over my mom, either in thought or real space and just now, I want to write about something else, or I want to want to. Either way, the current of sadness can rise to the surface of an otherwise joyful day as a faceless, nameless kind of tense that isn’t really anxious or nervous, just not quite right and then a word or a prayer or a song will loosen the latch and I know for sure that I can not yet comprehend that my mom is one of the ones who left their body behind in 2012.
Mentally I share oft-used phrases like “too young,” “so vibrant,” “a shining soul,” but I am saying something new, with meaning that has never been shared, because she is… (because I don’t want to share) and still, she isn’t, at least, I can’t call her when I’m bored, when I’m proud, scared, hurting, excited, ready to talk her into a new idea we can pull off together.
Yet here she is, present through every undertaking now, and I know it is her presence and assistance that have made life easier than I have ever known it (having the inside scoop as she does now). That and I’m listening better, more willing to accept process, less likely to hang on each curve in the road and call it the entire journey. I believe the word for this is maturity. I’m gaining a bit of it.
I am not ungrateful. I am fighting a meditation that could be this moment. So I have made it into words on a page, honesty in the world and after a while I may find that quiet space and let it be, breathing in, breathing out, naming nothing.
After reading over what’s been written here so far, I’ve decided to write Nine Acknowledgements of 2012 that are outside of the dominant experience of taking care of and saying good-bye to my mom.
1- I developed a brownie recipe similar to a brownie I can only buy in Springfield, MO. Only mine is better.
2- I epublished two books for Kindle.
3- I have been regaining the habit of daily exercise which mostly consist of sunshine-walks all around whatever campground we’re living at on a given day.
4- I accepted and have been practicing a method of relieving stress and transforming a day from difficult into easily manageable and even joyful. EFT.
5- I built a campfire by myself.
6- I have been eating more fruit.
7- I approached a Health Food store about carrying our cookbooks and now they are on the front shelf near the cash registers.
8- I have been getting to bed earlier and waking up earlier.
9- I scored over 2 million points on Zuma Blitz while listening to radio interviews of various Baha’i’s around the world.