Long lines of light stripe the garden as the sun fingers the sky with purple, pink, and orange.  The din of the highway has ceased – at least for now - and I sit in the quiet and contemplate.  Drops of water clinging to the geraniums catch a sparkle before they evaporate like so many wandering thoughts.  Refreshed flowers, after baking in the Missouri sun, seem to sing a silent song of longing.  Light beer soothes my parched throat and dulls my troubled mind.  For right now, I’ll let the exhaustion wash over me and just be in the moment.

I’ll block the worries from my brain and just exist for a little while.  I’ll try in vain to push out of my head so many demons of the past.  Memories that, although faded, still haunt me.  Although I am a man, I am very much still that frightened little boy who fears his father’s wrath and his mother’s subtle rejection.  Still the child of slight build who is afraid of the big boys in the schoolyard.

House wrens squabble over a make shift feeder.  A feeder that I destroyed quite by accident while trying to protect it from a marauding squirrel.  How many things have I destroyed while trying to protect them?  I’ve lost count.  I would do better to learn to let things be as they are.  How badly have I hurt you?  I’ll never know.  You’ll never tell. As badly as you’ve hurt me?  You’ll never know.  I’ll never tell.   

I live in a fortress.  A wall around me larger than the one in China.  I may not have been happy, but I was safe.  Without knowing it, you took a sledge hammer to that wall.  Now I am neither. 

Repair the wall.  Shut the door and lock it tight.  Push the demons back into the cellar and hide behind a façade of indifference. 

This evening will end like so many others.  The darkness will come.  The quietness will come.  All I will hear is bug music as my body is curled around a pillow, tucked between cool cotton sheets, staring at the stars, sleepless.

It was a cool, spring morning when I learned to swim.  My dad and I were wading in the shallow end of the pond that was just past a wooded section of our farm.  He simply picked me up without warning and threw me into the deeper cold water.  He suggested, after I coughed and choked on a mouthful of pond water, that I hold my breath when my head was under.  Terrified, I kicked and fought with arms flailing, learning to sort of dog paddle my way back to more shallow water. 

“That’s good”, he said.  “Now do it again.”  And with that he picked me right back up and threw me in again, and again, and again.  I kept being thrown into the deep until I learned not to panic and just navigate the water.  See, that’s how it was growing up with my dad.  There were no negotiations.  No crying.  No sissy boys.  There were no flotation devices.  We learned quickly.  His lessons were, if not extreme, very effective.  His was a sort of “tough love”.  Love? Well, it is my memory and so I’ll remember it as I wish.

In my experience, it’s the same way with God.  Like a stern parent, our Heavenly Father has this laundry list of lessons that I need to learn and learn them I will.  Like it or not.  Sure, the lessons usually start out gentle and loving, but when this doesn’t work then it’s into the deep I go quicker than I know what hit me.  And just like with my dad, I seem to keep being thrown in again, and again, and again.

So I’m doing the best I can to try to navigate the water.  I’m trying to learn to hold my breath and keep my mouth shut when I’m under.  I’m trying not to panic and keep my head up.  I’m trying to swim.  The problem is I can’t seem to find the more shallow edge of the water.  I keep searching but I tend to just get myself in deeper and deeper.  It’s like I’m trapped in this cold water.  My fingers are getting wrinkled and my legs are getting numb.  I’m tired of paddling and there doesn’t seem to be a life saver in sight.      

Image found at millnm.com

The poem "Muere Lentamente" (Dying Slowly) is attributed to Pablo Neruda.
—

You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.

You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;
When you do not let others help you.

You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don't know.

You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job,
or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice…

How did I ever drown in someone so shallow?

Sometimes you just get to a point where you have to realize that you have to stop beating your head against a brick wall and just let go and let be.  You have to give up what you think things should or could be and accept, no matter how disappointing, what is.

It isn't what you want, but it's what you have been given.  It isn't what you deserve, but it is what it is.  It isn't what you need, but it is all you're going to get.  So, you face it head on and accept it.  No matter how hard.  No matter how wrong.

And the beat goes on.   

Lately, I’ve found it terribly difficult to concentrate.  It seems more than not, my mind will just start to wander and my senses are caught up in the wonder of freshness and new that surrounds me.

As I was driving to work this morning, rather than planning for the tasks of the day, I was caught up in the explosion of forsythia yellow, the fluorescent red buds, pillow like puffs of pink and white on crab apples, and the lovely shade of coral on the quince bushes.  Waves of lavender henbit flood a fallow field in need of plowing.  Tiny unfurling lime green leaves and tiny spears of various shades whisper anticipation.

As I write this, a sudden shower has sprung up and the air smells like freshly laundered bed sheets.  Just moments before, you could hear peeper tree frogs from my open window and various familiar warbles and chirps as birds returning scope out the best places to build a nest.  A set of house wrens are quarreling.  She likes the space on the light under the eves of my house, whilst he thinks ¾’s up the pine tree makes a better location. 

It’s raining a bit harder now and the sky looks a menacing shade of grey.  The sheets of rain come on the diagonal washing away the winter grime.  A cup of tea is in order for such an occasion.  Milk and honey added.

A new start.  New beginning.  A re-boot, if you will.  The promise of vibrant growth come to life.  My mind continues on in lazy circles

The headache lingers and the night’s rest is fitful, so I go and sit by the window and look out into the moonless dark.  Smoky fingers of clouds seem to pluck the stars out of the sky one by one to deepen the blackness.  A feeble light from lingering snow.  A cold wind whistles through naked trees.

My mind is a raging sea of thought.

The stove’s belly grumbles with a shift of burning wood and belches a puff of smoke through the little crack in the pipe.  A copper kettle hisses unsuccessfully trying to keep the house from being too dry and I can see precious few lights in the valley where the town slumbers.  Everyone seems to be asleep but me.  I curl myself into a ball and try to rest my eyes.

More awake than asleep, my thoughts drift and whirl around at a dizzying pace.  Wishes, worries, woes.  The thoughts come and go and come back again.  It does no good to worry and it does no good to wish.  He promised hope and change, but have we been without hope for so long that change will not be soon enough?

Mortgage, shrinking investments, bills, bills and more bills.  Waiting for the damned green card already.  Expiring VISA.  Lousy job with no foreseeable promotion.  Faded friendships.  Apathy.  Exhaustion. Angst.  I feel my shoulders tense with each new wave of anxiety.

The glossy pages of the seed catalogue are slick against my fingers and as if reading some rare and precious book, I study each page with intensity.  After all, Spring holds promises of new growth and refreshment. 

I can feel my eyes get heavy and my body relax as I plan my garden.