Unfurled

Saturday Night

It’s the middle of the night. I’m away from home. I was in bed for two hours trying to sleep. Sleep with a headache and an aching back. I just got up and got dressed and was going to drive home. It’s a Saturday night. The road home is long and windy. And dark. And I’ve gotten lost several times on this road in the daylight. Some sane part of me told the crazy part of me to get my ass back in bed. So here I am, ass and all, in bed. Annie Lennox is singing. The hepa fan is fanning. People are asleep all around me.

I feel all...furled.

I’m in a strange place. Strange as in not home. Sometimes I am such a nester. Sometimes I am such a homebody. I wanted so much to drive home to take a bath, get into my bed, sleep, sleep, get up, fix breakfast in my kitchen. Even though Mario isn’t there. He’s gone to a workshop for eight days. I’m supposed to meet him, but if the weather doesn’t get better, I ain’t going. In fact, if the weather doesn’t get better, I may scrape some coin together and drive south.

I’ve got so much to do. Library stuff. Writing stuff. Don’t want to do any of it. Want to drive and drive, she said. Curl into a ball. Sleep. Watch hummingbirds. Lay on the ground. Watch the clouds.

I’m at a workshop. Part of this two year training I’m doing with Tom Cowan. Not sure I belong here. They are great people. I love being with them. Trust them. But most of them, maybe all of them, believe. In something. In a Divine Source. In an after life—or more life. Not in a religious dogmatic way. Just because. Because of their experience. Because of their studies. Because they just do.

I believe the world is made up of more than I can ever know. And sometimes it seems impossible for me to see anything beyond my nose.

Now Annie Lennox is singing, “Big Sky, I’m gonna hurt you.”

Makes me think of New Mexico. Driving. Driving. Driving. The sky so big. So blue. Huge mother ship clouds hovering above mesas that we try to drive to for...ever. And then we’re there, all at once. Just us. Mario and me. The sand is blond. White blond. I am so small compared with the bigness all around. I still ache. I am still lost. I am still tangled up in the thread of my life, the thread that should keep me connected. But I don’t care about any of that when I am there because I am home, where the red road meets the blue sky.

Strange. I ache for place now the way I used to ache for people when I was younger.

If I had money, I would move to New Mexico in a heartbeat. Tomorrow. I’d buy a place, make it sustainable. And that’s where I’d live.

Just realized that.

Or maybe that’s just middle of the night dark of the night soul thinking.

Monday

I’m home now. I never did drive home in the middle of the night, thank goodness. Yesterday as I was leaving the place, I was lost for about thirty minutes, driving along those winding roads not having a clue as to where I was. Once I got clear of the trees and could see the mountain, then I knew where to go. Of course, in the dark of the night, I wouldn’t have seen any mountains.

Anyway.

I’m home. It’s a beautiful day and I’m inside. In about two minutes, I’m going to put on some walking clothes and I’m gonna...walk.

The hummingbird feeder was empty when I got home late yesterday afternoon. I’ve filled it again, but the hummingbirds are snubbing me.

I’ll try not to take it personally.

Mario is attending a writing workshop—on the business of writing. He’s learning lots of good stuff. Publishing has changed so much in the last five to seven years, and it’s a good thing to keep up. I’ll go meet him soonish.

I got home to an empty house yesterday. Very strange. I went around trying to put things right. But my back and head hurt. Ended up on the couch watching TV. Still have the headache. Mario reminded me that I always get a headache when I go to these workshops. It’s very intense work. Love made visible...with a headache.

Aren’t I funny?

I miss my sweetheart. I want to sit in silence. On the steps. In the sun. Watch the ants make compelling shapes on the old cement. Wonder if they are trying to communicate with me using ant semaphore. Listen to the wind in the trees. Watch the first poppy unfurl its blossom.

Is there anything more beautiful than a poppy?

No secret in what the poppy is signalling to us. To the birds. Bees. World.

Love, baby. It’s all about love.

Everyone is an island is to themselves Annie sings.

I think she’s wrong.

Many things going on in my brain now. None of it is coming out very coherently. I will talk soon about my weekend.

Or else I won’t.

Right now I need to walk.

Walk it off, babies.

May You Walk in Beauty!