Wordless

I would not label this state that I am in as "speechless" because if you really asked, I could talk your ear off about something or other. Simply put, I am wordless to describe what has been going on in my life and in my days and in my head. There are periods in my life when I am afraid to write about something out of fear of changing it. Ultimately this is what happens to the poet; his poetry is unraveled by the failure of words to describe what is observed.

Perhaps this is why I tried my hand at science for so many years. The idea of pure observation and quantifying this observation was exciting. The joke was on me as it has been on the scientist for years. Numbers fail. Observation and quantification fail. Logic ALWAYS fails, and I will argue that point with words and numbers until I die of breathlessness. Ultimately the scientist finds herself out of the lab and at her desk hand waving with the same tool as the poet: words.

The number of blog posts rolling around in my head are driving me insane: I would like to write about celebrating my parents' 60th birthday on a cruise ship. I would like to describe my dear friend who has gone through loss and health problems, and her mental and physical recovery. I need to describe the bravery of another friend who has stage 4 breast cancer and cannot catch a break in the physical realm, but somehow found the time to read this blog and let me know that she loved it. I would like post some advice to my newly engaged best friend. I would like to post some advice to a friend not far from giving birth to her first child. I would like to write another letter to my child, because she fills me with the kind of anguishing love that takes over my whole existence. I want to write about a country that is shaking itself free of the evils of torture and automatic weapons. I want to write about how fear of change, even if it means turning away from these evils, is guiding the tongues and hands of so many people.

Right now, I am humbled by the failure of words to describe these events that have me swimming or wading on my knees through my days. The truth is, no matter what form you take, poet or scientist, the key is to not miss a moment. If you are watching close enough, the words eventually gather at your feet.

Getting Started

I just finished mopping up a pool of tears after rereading an excerpt from Patti Digh's book Life is a Verb entitled, Just Help Them Get Started. On the surface it is about her struggle to realize that her toddler daughter is giving up her afternoon nap. It seems at first that her daughter is wailing and screaming and scratching at things in protest just to hurt her mother. I have a toddler. I can relate.

In a way that only Patti Digh can open our eyes, she turns the tale around by realizing that she was ignoring the fear of her daughter, a lack of the ability to get to sleep at that time of day, a fear of being left alone in the room to try and try and try to sleep in the boundless dark. As she is storming out of the child's room, she finally hears her words through the screaming, "Just help me get started!" This is kid-speak for "stay with me, I can't figure out how to do this myself." I am an insomniac. I can relate.

In a follow-up challenge to this story, Patti encourages us to examine our own hall of fears. The ones that make us stop listening to the cries of fear from others that are so often disguised as hurtful actions. I hurt people around me when I am fearful. I can relate.

My big, glaring fear is loneliness. This is almost a joke because I am not a people-person at all. As a stay at home/work at home mother, I am debilitated by isolation when it hits me that I have not spoken to an adult in many hours or when I have not accessed a spiritual outlet such as hospice or church. This fear can often make me seem like I resent the people closest to me, the ones who live with me. My husband and my daughter...not the cats--I honestly do resent the cats most of the time.

Yesterday my husband's company decided it was time for him to move to Michigan, with or without me, whether or not our house has sold. Because we are not making the type of money to carry two mortgages, this will leave me ALONE during the week in an old house in Cleveland, with a toddler that I love but is prone to drive me insane and two cats that I resent. He will rent a small apartment in Michigan.

To summarize with an understatement: I am afraid.

My husband is super-man. He puts my needs first. He puts our daughter before all of that. He notices when I am too exhausted to bathe our daughter and get her in her PJs. He notices when I need a break and gives me the day off. Basically, the way I live my life is because I have him in it most every day.

Now who will I be without that? I will examine this fear. For now, I am forgiving myself for being stuck in the stage that has me clawing and screaming, "Help me get started!"

SAD

Oh, it is time to admit that this season has control over me. Deep winter envelops every part of me that I like and freezes it over. It hurts to walk outside, it hurts to get out of bed, it hurts to fall asleep, and it hurts to crack a smile. Cleveland is especially brutal because we see the sun this time of year about once every 30 days. We are at the point where the icicles spend the day weeping as the thermometer approaches 30 degrees, but freeze into rigid points by 4 pm, when the temperature dips back into the teens. Or as they are predicting this week--below zero.

The worst part is, my best friend named guilt seeps into every crack of my frozen self. I know there is no tragedy in my life. I know I am not going to starve in the next week. I know I can control the thermostat in my house. I know I can walk 2 miles down the main road near my house and stumble over someone who will surely freeze to death tonight--and that person is not someone I know. So I feel horrible AND guilty for feeling horrible.

In a month I will start flipping through the phone book for a shrink. Or light therapy. Or I will spend a week on a diet of chocolate cake.
I am old enough to know that spring always comes.