I won't explain since you can't understand,
nor would I expect you to climb inside
the jewelled crater of my skull and stand
among the ruins, scout among them, then hide
from me, your enemy, inside my own terrain,
crystallized from previous blows--not all yours.
Nor will I now expect you to refrain
from assessment as you stand outdoors,
canvassing my geode skull's smooth surface
and, seeing no clues as to the damage
or to the quirky beauty of old ravage,
urge me again and again to confess
that because I'm hard and hidden from you
you're forced to hysterics from nothing to do.
~Molly Peacock
I am killer depressed today. I know it is "The Date" -- six years later, but it's also six years since my first college class and six years since meeting my ex-husband, and my petty personal tragedies have as much weight in my selfish mind as the great tragedy that has sparked off a thousand thousand other tragedies. So I'm feeling aweful and feeling awful about feeling awful. And somehow the fact that it's Tuesday Sept. 11th again feels horrible too, as if we're on some miserable spiral. And I am lonely and still mourning my relationship(s). And then there's the time flying by...
Man oh man. It ought to stop raining soon.
10 comments:
I spent the morning, as I do each year, with the firefighters of Engine 33 Ladder 9, their families, neighbors... and the mornings saddness is followed by retired firefighters seeing the children of present firefighters, a celibration of life and continuence.
Look forward, dear friend. Take joy in things and people who have not left thee behind.
It will stop raining.
lor
Hi. My life does not suck nearly as much as many people's and yet I moped around today as if nothing was right. I ate too much and didn't go for my walk that I had planned and had time for and yet didn't. And the radio stations were maudlin.
I am finding that folding laundry is a good meditative task. It's clean and dry and makes substantial evidence that I have done something.
Tomorrow, I am going to try to make a schedule and stick to it. Not a heavy duty schedule, but as if it mattered what I did and when.
I know how you feel sometimes, how low, down, desperate, bleak, empty, heavy, weary, sorrowful, sad, wretched, sick, tired, aching, lonely, and lots more.
A couple of days ago I got a phone call from my best friend. She lives with and looks after her Granny who is very frail, poorly and getting much worse. My friend thought that, that night would be the night that she died. Well, she didn't. I didn't believe it was possible but she's become ever more ill and all the doctors can do is remove her medication to try and hasten the end while giving her lots of morphine to kill her pain and keep her 'knocked out'. My best friend and her Granny are suffering so much, they are going through so much pain (physical and emotional) and heart rendering sorrow at the moment that no amount of love, or prayer, or 'holding them in the light' can salve their wounds. It will, after the end, but right now there is just an enormity of deafening pain. And it is at times like this that my sadness and depression are not relevant.
While normally it is good to share your feelings and not suppress how you feel, sometimes you have a responsibility to those around you to be stolid, not to feel, not to show emotion. You have to be an anchor for them. No matter how you may be breaking inside, showing your angst, acting on it and maybe even acknowledging it to yourself is not an option. Because of the love you have for others you must consciously, even logically, and resolutely, lay behind you your own pain, don't even look at it. Our responsibilities and love for others are too great to be hindered by ourselves. Remember, we are never really own.
QuakerBear
Quakerbear, could you email me? agareis at gmail.com
Not a good night tonight, to write. I am sitting on a message, do check thy email tommorow, or the next day, and I will explain.
But, suffice to say, I miss thee, and thy wisdom on many things.
All the very best
lor
Dear Amanda,
I'm sorry if I offended you. I think sometimes I write as a catharsis more then I ought.
If you don't like the rain don't move to Ireland. I lived in Northern Ireland for two years and it rained every single day, no exception. But then on the plus side, if it hadn't rained so much it wouldn't be so emerald lush (oo, that rhymed! I'm a poet! lol).
I should also appologise for my spelling. Sometimes it's just plain wrong, other times I just don't know the new way. But something definateley looks wrong with "rhyme", have I spelt it wrong?
I found it particularly hard that it was tuesday 9/11 again as well, how strange.
And I know just how you feel. The national mourning was a sort of slight grey tinge to the drama of my own life (which really isn't all that dramatic!) - and it's so easy to think, how silly and selfish, to be mourning for my last relationship, or my dissatisfaction with my little life, on such a momentous day.
But that's really all there is, our little lives, just like the little lives of those who died on 9/11/01 and the loved ones they left behind.
My cousin killed himself sometime overnight between 11/30/01 and 12/01 - he'd been volunteering at the site, and he didn't leave us any sort of note. His sister thought it might be that he felt guilty for not having died, not having had as full a life as many who did (he wasn't married, or employed, at 33 - quite at loose ends I think) - but we'll never really know. Everything ripples out, and small, personal tragedies are no less tragic, and often so much harder to bear!
Thanks for the poem, it was something I needed to read.
Amanda,
I found this quote at another blog, and it made me think of you.
"To be alive is to be broken. And to be broken is to stand in need of grace. Honesty keeps us in touch with our neediness and the truth that we are saved sinners. There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are."
- Brennan Manning
(found at http://happycatholic.blogspot.com/2007/09/well-said_13.html)
Sometimes you do need to be strong for the people around you. But sometimes it is your turn to be weak so as to inspire strength in those who love you. Sometimes we serve, sometimes we must be humbled to be served. Both roles, I've learned, have their graces and lessons, and neither is to be despised.
Much love!
Kate
Well, the rain has stopped. I found this great nature preserve practically across the street from the building I work in (makes you wonder what there before they put in an office park). Anyway, it's super cool with trails and ponds and marsh land. I saw a deer and a heron and smelled wet rotting wood. It was fantastic. Today, I took the folding chair out of my trunk and plopped down on a dock in the river and read for an hour over lunch. It felt so good to take my shoes off and feel the sun.
I'm rambling. hug!
Rob
Funny Rob's comment is here and so much like what I was going to say!
(Hello Rob) I was going to say, the rains are over, and it has cooled down the city, and set the environment for fall, for seeds to set down for spring, getting us ready for winter... change, but repeted change, change with certainty of rebirth, green springs... It was a lovely day, weather wise, and will be wet again over the weekend, as the North East cools down, like sunset on summer... rest, cozy evenings, then it starts all over again.
All will be well dear friend
all is well, and will be new again.
Don't think of endings, important things don't end, they sleep awhile and awake anew...
really
lor
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