Standstill

I am an impatient person in general. I like results, and I like pursuing results even more. When it comes to speeds I only have two: 100mph or 0, the former of which I operate in most of the time, the latter only when I am burned out for very short amounts of time.

I love people and projects and I can seemingly never get enough of either. It brings me energy, purpose and is my chosen pace in life. So you can imagine my surprise and confusion to find myself suddenly at a halt, understanding I may only get back up again at a momentum that is offensively slow to my nature. But like the scuba diver, I recognize if I ascend too fast, I will only end up getting The Bends.

I had stopped using their names altogether years ago, referring to them only as I felt them in my heart, my own personal possessions in a deeply personal pursuit: My Cellist. My Pianist. I am a double amputee, unsure how to navigate, accepting I will have a lifetime of phantom pains.

Perhaps it’s being middle aged, or maybe it’s similar to the phenomenon of when you buy a new red car and you suddenly see a hundred other red cars on the road, but lately I see countless others in my community in a similar state as myself. We are all at a dead stop, unsure how to navigate, trying to accept our phantom pains.

But how do we start again when the words of our losses are that of son and daughter, sibling and best friend, mother and father, partner and spouse? I don’t know. I keep trying to break it down into manageable bits, but the pieces are still too large. I don’t know the Math to shrink my grief into quarks.

So I begin with taking walks. It’s a good pace for my pathetic physical stamina, the weather is warming and it seems appropriate I start by (literally) taking small steps towards my figurative reboot. I have always enjoyed being in nature, and my walks calm me in a way that surprises me.

I always go along the same route; I need to see and hear the river. The new greens of Spring carpet the banks, then dot and smudge the branches a thousand times overhead like a Monet painting. I feel the wind and sun and try to have appreciation for a nice day, but can’t.

When I get to the end of my path, there are chairs waiting that overlook a large swath of the Mississippi River and are placed next to where I know wild roses will bloom later in the season. These chairs are put out by the people who live in the last house on this dead end street. I have never met them, but they’ve done it for years with a note saying sit and rest. Now, it feels like a private gesture, some human kindness for my inner fatigue.

So I sit. And be still. Though I am mute, the birds still sing. Though I look at the river, the river does not look back at me. What is my weariness to this timeless river? This river who has seen the unimaginable suffering and struggles of land and beings, and also that of unimaginable beauty of a million fiery sunsets and just as many pale, silver moonrises. It is wise and strong, and can only love in detached observation; an immortal witness to the infinite cycle that is life. I envy it.

Before I head back, I look down to see a patch of my favorite wildflowers starting to sprout, Johnny Jump Ups, tiny wild violets shaped like purple teardrops with spokes of yellow at its center. For a moment, I smile.

It is a start.

As a blogger, I’ve been really lucky to have touched people in my community and from across the country over the years, thanks to Patch. Sometimes people I’ve never met reach out to tell me they can relate to my story and will often share theirs. This is a big part of what continues to inspire me to write—you the reader. I strive to do really only one thing in my blogs: embrace and reveal the human spirit— and all the mess and glory that it gifts us.

This blog is for everyone who is trying to start again after loss and pain of their own; it seems to me there are many right now. I suppose there always are.

For related blog, read The Phoenix.