the upswing... and a near miss

Today I am beginning to feel legitimately better. Emotionally, if in no other way, but hey, I'll take it.

I was able to make a flitratious advance before my second cup of coffee and was able to keep the flirty mood up for most of the day. That is HUGE progress. A week ago, I couldn't give a damn about feeling sexy. Bleh.

So I am still very, VERY tired. My muscles still ache - weird ones, too. Bicep, triceps, pecs, abs (cleverly hidden under a protective layer of fat) back, shoulders and quadriceps. They all hurt. Gluts, hamstrings, and calves are all fine. I can't figure out a rhyme or reason to it, just taking note. And my balance has gone wonky. What's up with that?! Any readers out there (among the six of you) been through this menopause thing and experience vertigo? Very strange stuff. And problematic. I work on ladders and scaffold and such. standing near a high open edge today, I got lightheaded and grabbed hold - in as nonchalant a way as I could manage - of a big stack of gypsum board to steady myself. A couple of times I noticed I just felt dizzy, and I can't figure out why. It is worrisome.

So, I had a good day. My emotions are back up, I got a little work done, I've got a plan for doing things next week, I got paid, I tucked a little money away to pay for some serious ink I have been contemplating for a while, and I had a decent supper.

I find that an upswing can be easily derailed, though.

An offhand remark by a friend can plant a seed of doubt, and the waves of insecurity can start rushing back. I did my best to let it go, to not dwell, but it still lingered.

I went to soak in the landlord's hot tub and relax my muscles. The doubts still swirled. I am not out of the woods yet.

On my way out of the screened gazebo that houses the hot tub, the landlord's cat greeted me. His master is away on vacation, and the cat has access to the house, but apparently he lacks company. I petted him and he purred. I scooped him up to bring into the house and he was not as happy about that as I had hoped. There was no hissing or scratching, but he seemed grateful when I dropped him at the cat door and he darted inside.

I stood in the driveway, lit only by the just past full moon and thought, "I do hope Wayne has a black cat."

I walked toward the path behind the school that leads to my place, and turned to look at the moon. She was beautiful tonight. Almost full, waning just a bit, in a sky clear and midnight blue and dotted with a million stars. It took my breath away. Instinctively, I faced the moon, put my hands together and murmured "let us be in the spirit of worship."

And it was.

For the first time in months, I worshipped.

I did not pray specifically to the moon, but to the mother spirit of the universe. I prayed for strength and patience to get through whatever this is, and I thanked her for reminding me that there will be balance in the world, and in me.

I stood in the driveway, lit as though in daylight by the bright shining moon, miles from anything that most people would recognize as civilization, and I let the moon's rays wash over me. There will be balance. What I am going through will even out. The boat must rock a bit before it settles again.

The peace that came over me was amazing.

I squatted on the ground, not quite kneeling, but still with hands clasped in prayer formation, and allowed myself to submit to the power of nature, the power of the yin and the yan, the balance that spins the planet at just the right speed to keep us all from flying off, the force that runs the tides and makes them come and go and cleanse our shores. It was wonderful.

Filled with peace and wonder, I stood to turn and go home.

And the moonlit yard swirled around me.

I dropped back to my crouch, hands on the ground in front of me.

Dizzy. Swirling, nauseatingly, world-spinning-like-a-ride-at-the-fair-dizzy.

I exhaled.

OK, better. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

This is NOT where and how I want to pass out, thank you. In the driveway, in a bathrobe and crocks with a towel over my shoulder and a cat that may or may not belong to my landlord as my only witness. Wouldn't that be something for the catsitter guy to find in the morning! Um, no.

Slowly, and mindful of the lesson I had just learned, I gradually raised myself from my crouched position to a full stand. Breathe in and out a couple more times just to make sure I had the hang of it, and OK.

Thank you, mother moon spirit, for the blessing and the lessons. Thank you auntie cat for your supervision of this evening's worship.

I turned and walked into the darkness of the path and back to my own yard.

I have some ideas for self-care for tomorrow. I need to go to bed now so that I can get up and do them. Good night.

almost home

The sun is coming up among buildings again for the last time in this journey. Tomorrow I will wake up in my own bed and watch it rise over familiar scenery.

I attended worship yesterday at the congregation of a friend from college. Very upper middle class, white and very educated and cultured. It was a music service and there was a piano, a cello and a 20-member choir with no fewer than four voices suited (and used) for solos. It was very cultured and high-brow. I don't think anyone there knew I was a teamster. But they all knew I was queer. It was interesting.

It was beautiful worship, please don't get me wrong. These folks offered up what they held dearest - fine chamber music - as praise for whatever shape the divine takes for them. It was beautiful (especially the Scottish/Irish-sounding bits). It was a bit of a shock to my system after my weekend in downtown Providence, surrounded by people of all colors and shapes and stripes and persuasions. Church on Sunday was a pretty homogeneous affair.

The clouds are lit this morning from beneath as the sun climbs. I cannot see it yet, as there is a house between me and it, but I can see its light reflected on the underside of the thin layer of clouds that is stretched over the city. They are the clouds that precede a snowstorm by a day or two, thin and grayish, like an old blanket worn thin. I can see bits of blue through the blanket in some spots. There is a hopeful-looking strip of blue along the horizon. Today will be a good day to meet some friends and then drive home.

I am especially looking forward to driving home.

I sit at a kitchen table in a nice apartment in Portland. There are Tibetan prayer flags hung in the window. Their letters are foreign to me - so many squiggles writ small on thin fabric. But they are beautiful. I imagine they, and others like them that I see all around, hold the hopes and prayers, thoughts of tomorrow, wishes and dreams written down and then hoisted and let go for the universe to absorb and care for.

A gray squirrel just clambered up the skinny branches of a tree in the next yard. He got to the eve of the garage's gambrel roof and dug his little claws into the asphalt shingles to haul himself up to the peak. He sat for a moment and had a brisk bath in the gray morning light and scampered off to find breakfast. He was lean for a gray squirrel, but I suppose that is proper in mid-February. I wonder if he can hibernate until food becomes more available or if he has to take his chances competing with cats and dogs and raccoons and skunks in people's trash.

I wonder if he is the same scoundrel squirrel who dug up every last bulb that the downstairs neighbor planted last fall, and sat smugly on the garden Buddha eating each one. I was here that day to witness his gluttony and her outrage. For the record, therapists are not always calm and healing people. She wanted fur-lined gloves that day.

Had an interesting talk this morning about personality types - as in Myers-Briggs personality types. I think it might not be a bad idea for me to do some reading. I need to know how I operate and how the people around me operate so that I can work effectively with them. Particularly if I work on a political project that I've been rooting for for a while. Still not sure how that all is going to work out, but I think something cool is going to come of it. We'll see.

The sun is up now, but I still cannot see it. It is 8:30 a.m. and I know it must be up, but between the close-packed houses and rooftops, the distant high-rise condos and the low-lying cloud cover, I never got to see it. I can't see the bits of blue through the thin spots any more now, although that hopeful slice of blue persists on the horizon. I think South Portland might have sun this morning. Maybe Scarborough, too.

It might be time to get moving. Worship this morning seems disjointed, awkward. Perhaps tonight, at home, things will change.

Stay tuned.

country mouse

I am feeling very much like a country mouse this morning.

I am in Providence, RI, staying at a moderately fancy downtown hotel. It has free wifi, but no valet parking. The room is big and bright, and the sun is coming in, but it feels off, somehow.

I've been away from home for a week now, and I long for my cluttered little writing space. I want to sit at my window and look out at my yard and the neighbor's field and the foot prints of various creatures that are familiar to me. I want to see the sun come up over the line of trees at the edge of the field, and know that beyond those woods lies Atlantic Ocean that stretches for thousands of miles.

Here, the sun came up somewhere over behind me to my left, behind a building more than 20 stories tall. The only things that tall in Maine are our mountains.

It's true. The tallest building I know of is an apartment tower in Portland, and I don't think it's more than 10 or 12 stories. Bangor has nothing that tall. I suppose there are some smokestacks at paper mills that might be a couple hundred feet tall, but that's about it.

I long for my woods and quiet roads that have two lanes - one for cars going in each direction. Without a divider of some kind in the middle. I long for dirt roads and rutted driveways and country people. I want potlucks and funny stories and shared hardships - and shared solutions - that make rural living what it is.

In my week in Portland, I had a good time. I got to see a lot of people whom I have not seen in a while, and visiting with old friends is always fun. I got to eat at that great Thai noodle place, and that was fun too. It almost felt like I could move back there. The seminary I plan to apply to has a campus in Portland. I could do that, I suppose.

But a week there, followed by a weekend in Providence is enough to convince me that I need to not be in a city, even a small one like Portland, for a while. I need the quiet of a rural setting to get my head and thoughts in order. Perhaps someday when I am all spiritually evolved and can create my own peace out of air, I can live in a city, but for now I need the quiet of the country.

I've got appointments today and things to do and people to see, and I expect I will have a good time as I do it all. But I will be glad to hit the road in the morning and head north.

I will stop in Dedham, Mass. to visit an old college chum who is the minister of a small UU congregation there. I plan to attend the weekly worship service and then have coffee and chat with her afterwards. She went to the same seminary I plan to apply to. I want to hear what her heart has to say about the experience.

The sun is up fully now. The day is begun. I see people and vehicles rushing about in the street below. I miss my cat and my little dog. I miss my home. This is a fun weekend, but I think if I come next year, I will not spend a week away from home first. It is too much for me.

muted colors

Snow is falling this morning. No sun worship for the cat or for me.

The forecast says to expect only a few inches, but it looks like nature might intend to bless us with more than that. I shall pack my shovels and buckets of sand and salt in the truck before I leave, just to be sure I have the necessary bits as I travel today.

Funny how my search for a definition of my higher power seems to have faded into the background of the big news of my call to ministry. I spent no small amount of time and energy exploring what I think god might be, and how I might relate to said god, and then I got the lightning bolt thing and it all sort of faded in comparison.

The snow is reminding me that I can worship here in the morning. There is no sun to warm my face and make the cat and I blink in unison, but there is beauty just the same. Snowflakes are falling by the millions, sometimes they come in tiny little flakes and other times they lumber down from the heavens like so many little toy army men with handkerchief parachutes, big and round and white against the pale blue of the early morning dusk.

I can feel the tension in me drain away as I watch. The seem to rinse the stress from my body as they fall past me outside my window. It is as though I were standing in a shower of snowflakes and they were washing off dust and sweat and grime as they fall. I did not know I carried that much tension in the morning, but I am noticing it as it goes away.

It is a conscious act to relax like this, to submit, and let nature's metaphorical touch wash away the things that make me uncomfortable. Worship does not always happen like this for me, but I like it. I like relaxing onto the experience, to feel my body drop into a kind of altered state of relaxation, allowing the universe to be in control instead of me. It is a familiar feeling, but not one I generally experience in this context.

I know I have to go soon, to move aside nature's offerings so that people can come and go without walking through the snow and getting their feet wet. They will not look at this snow the way I am now. To them it will be a nuisance, a thing that makes walking and driving slower and more hazardous than normal. It will irritate them. It may well irritate me, too, as I drive from place to place, but I will try to remember this moment, the feeling of submission to the divine as I am joined with nature and the universe.