I am so damn sick of linear!
A straight line from here to there. No deviations. A dusty road with no turns.
Birth to death. That’s it. Or is it?
I found this concept, “time as round” when I was moved (oh yes, this is the ONLY way I write poetry. It’s too darn hard otherwise) to capture something about my life with my husband, and inside our 50 year relationship/marriage.
Take Care
I reach out in the middle of my wakefulness and touch his back. He stirs and releases a plaintive sigh. My hand moves, up and down his spine until I find myself back in twilight consciousness where movement stills, and he says, "Do you have to stop? That helps me to breathe." "I need to sleep," I reply. Both things are true. It's been many, many years of a brave heart winding down. In the day time I travel twice as many steps. Ones that get me to where I'm going and then more to save him the labor of walking. If I save him these steps, perhaps 100 a day(?) I ask myself, "Will I have him here with me, as many more days? I begin the addition-- 100+100+100+... I don't know of course. No one does. What I really want is for his days and my days to be filled with the round time it takes for such care. With no thought of, "What else must be done?" Any other task seems trite anyway. There may be no pleasure that brings more peace. Not to mention daily doses of his acceptance of a helping shoulder lean, and a collapsing hug of exhaustion into my arms. Am I his life support? His oxygen mask? His crooked cane? Or, as in a long marriage, the pronouncement--"The two shall become one." That being true, I am saving my own life with every gesture of care toward that end and his comfort! Time has gone in a circle where I now can live the dying words of my father; "The purpose of life is to love. And don't hold back." Power lies in the choosing. To give love through care which nurtures both as one regardless and also because it will circle into itself as deep, long lasting, and forever grief. That dear price we pay for love. One day, Some day, after 100+100+100...steps
My life has been filled to the brim with death and dying lately. My best friend Helen, passed one week before her 78th birthday which was Sept. 17. We were friends for 20 odd years.
And what I notice from this experience, is this roundness of time when death is given a place instead of being shoved into a corner, ignored and dismissed. There was no where to go and in no special time when I made my pilgrimage to her bedside in Maine. The flight, however was cancelled that would have brought me there “in time” for her passing.
But it did not feel like the step was missed. It is still here, somewhere. I had made two other trips to Maine during the odyssey of her dying, one to present a play that we wrote with another friend. Forty-five people came to see this last splash of creativity and life. In this play Helen’s beautiful singing voice was shared through an audio version, these lyrics:
“Wonder if I fly before I have wings
Wonder if I die while I still have breath to sing?”
Oh, it was beautiful! She wore a blue cashmere floor length sweater and purple and blue butterfly wings. She flew with those wings! She really did. I think.
A month later, during the wake, I sat in meditation with my friends’ three children, in a vigil that lasted 3 days. Was it time for supper? For a shower? Or, was there just eternity…to be continued?
All sorts of “deadlines” (curious word) began to pop up the longer I circled in time. And, some, actually folded in on themselves—a retreat that I was to lead upon my return home to Pennsylvania, got cancelled. which freed me up to go to the White Out game at Penn State this coming weekend with my daughter, her husband, friends of all sorts and my own husband who loves that I now will be going too. He’ll be looking to lean on my shoulder as we trudge to the stadium in old people tempo!
It’s been a long linear trek following the dictates of culture lo, these past 50 years or so. Checking off the straight line of milestones; college, career, marriage, kids, grandkids….death?
It’s now time for a different kind of time. I’m beginning to sense, as well as learn about planes of light. Places we can abide in, where we occupy the “now” and co-create without a beginning, middle, end—linear.
If you are a reader who has kept up with the chronicling of my amazing (to me) change of heart and mind during the awakening, then you know well, that I want to be available for any “work” that might be assigned to me during this evolutionary shift.
I stand at the ready. Months of meditation, which grew from 15 min. to 30 to now 40 min. each day with one word on my lips, “surrender,” has brought me to this round time. I have no idea what ground to cover, when to start, and where I am going.
I imagine a lovely “army” of souls (can we get a new metaphor for a group of courageous comrades?) getting ourselves organized for the long haul, entering the spiral of time, coming in and going out. Willing to die, the ego that is, in order to live as we have never lived before.
Free.
I do, have faith, hard-won, that doing what is in front of me is indeed my work.
I wait for inklings. Intuition, with my heart leading.
Psalms 105:
“I wait in peace, until You stir the waters within to act.”
Absolutely beautifully written Ms. Elle 💐
Your words resonate deep in one’s soul. Thank you.