There is a storm raging now that prevents me from taking time to discern whether it something I heard is memory of my experience or something else.
Mild irritation is felt by the inability to put my finger upon it but when you are scaling the side of a mountain you best not spend too much time trying to discern what is going on anywhere other than the places you put your fingers and feet.
Climbers who do otherwise risk the kind of fall that doesn’t result in long lasting pain for the climber but instead passes that along to those that survive them.
Still I keep hearing a female voice say we fall in and out of love and me refuting that.
Something about long lasting love, soul mates and or destiny flies in and out pushed and pulled through mud and muck.
A calm voice cuts through saying something about you can fool yourself into believing you don’t love but your actions say otherwise.
You Won’t Miss What You Don’t Read Or Hear
There is an early morning meeting 32 miles east of me that I am going to and it is making me slightly crazy.
It is not because I am not fully prepared because I am good at winging it when I have to. I know enough to lead, follow and or play off others here and the truth is most of this is information gathering.
But there is a piece of me that is irked because I haven’t been given as much information as I would like and I am unsure how long it will take to get there at this time of the day.
“Make sure you are early because they’ll start without you and they really shouldn’t.”
I smile and say “you won’t miss what you don’t read or hear.”
Some people appreciate my insouciant nature and others don’t.
“Surely you are taking this more seriously than that.”
“I am and stop calling me Shirley.”
I don’t have to see their face to know I am getting the eye roll nor do I have to provide reassurance that I am on top of this because they know from experience I am.
But I don’t tell them I am feeling edgy and that I got hit with a lightning bolt of guilt about a situation that took place a few years back.
I can hear dad tell me to shrug it off and accept I did my best.
“You did what you could based upon the information you had and that is all you can do.”
He is/was right but it doesn’t mean that sometimes I don’t look back and ask a few questions.
I carry very few regrets and relatively little guilt because it serves no purpose. When I am on my game I am sure footed and certain.
Doesn’t mean everyone agrees with me, but I make it work.
****
Back on the mountain side I hear a voice from long ago say tell me things I am not thrilled to hear and then my own reply.
“I don’t buy what you are selling. You can walk all you want, but it is not because you really want to. It is because you think you have to.”
Sure enough my left hand slips and I am forced to discover that my right arm is still capable of holding my entire weight by itself.
It is not information I wanted or needed, this will hurt later on. Hell it will probably ache for a while, but I am familiar with ache and I’ll manage.
The Beauty Of Age
There was a moment just before my colonoscopy started in which my imagination got the best of me.
I looked down at the BP pressure cuff on my left arm and the IV in my right hand and saw my father lying in his hospital bed.
Given that my hands are virtually identical to his it is not completely ridiculous but given that I wasn’t drugged and wide awake I shouldn’t have come up with something crazy like that.
But the heart wants what the heart wants and the mind sees what it sees and neither have to be rational.
Which is why I told them to dope me up sooner than later.
The beauty of age means I don’t need to prove how tough I am or be afraid to show weakness.
Although if I am brutally honest it is not easy for me to tell people when I am nervous or upset. The circle is small and it contains some I rarely speak with.
That in itself is interesting to me, because if I don’t speak with you with any sort of consistency I am probably not going to share the important stuff.
But sometimes there are some you share connection with that for inexplicable reason provide comfort and shelter regardless of how often you open up to each other.
****
My preference would be to take time to write more and further explore some of these thoughts but there isn’t time for it now.
Those of us that dance in the fire may be agile enough to keep from burning the important parts but only because we know when the wind is going to change.
I hear it picking up and sense it is time to start working on building the shelter because soon we’ll be up against it and in the thick of it.
That is always easier when you are either prepared or situated in a place that provides a place to make a stand.
Remember me not just for who I was or who I am but who I shall be.
