Yesterday was a tough one for me. I had to face a next challenge: the one of realizing my body wasn’t dead, only my relationship as a wife. My mind, it seems, had conveniently forgotten to inform my rebel body about its current state of strict celibacy. Yesterday, it wasn’t taking any orders to be dead, and I experienced intense yearnings to be touched and stroked and kissed.
Sensitive parts gasped at any contact, thrilling me into bloody horniness; hence, my mind crashed because there is no one I want to touch me. There may never be again!!!! That was a totally unexpected, uncalled for, and overwhelming thought.
Besides, if the time comes when I’m no longer standing as a widow but as a single woman, I have to go through the demonizing process of picking and choosing again. The thought of dating, well, that puts me in a state of paralysis. I remember multitudes of evenings spent with a book, very few dinner dates and never a dancing one. Perhaps I was taken to a movie or two, a few parties, and once I went on a gambling trip to Las Vegas which ended in disaster. I have no idea how to do this courting ritual anymore, and I’m scared silly at the prospect. As for choosing, well, I floundered like a fish out of water with that hurdle, finally letting the universe do it for me while I went along for the ride. I met my first husband in the waiting room after his father had a heart attack. I met my second husband through mutual friends.
Hence the slump yesterday, leading to this morning’s vow of not selling myself off to the first man who knocks on the door. I can see why many widows and widowers get married again in the first year of this aloneness. It would be easy to do, given the huge amount of work needed to maintain my mountain home and the various implements needing fixing, as well as the empty space in the house where a real live person used to be. I don’t have someone with whom to fight or to bat around a problem.
I’m better off talking to an imaginary friend, batting a pillow, as well as taking myself in hand or getting massages. My need for intimacy will have to be softened by hugging family and girl friends as well as standing in the sunlight near the post office for comforting conversations. I’ll just have to keep my trouble-making body in tow with yoga and hard work, plus splashes of cold water once in a while. "Sigh" I never thought I'd have the problem of my brain knowing one thing and my body having other ideas.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Claiming my Own
A year ago, when I began blogging, I had no idea I’d be sharing emotions I’d never felt in my life.
But, here I am, tripping and stumbling my way through widowhood and using this space as a way to make real to myself all that’s happening. I can’t lie to myself when I’m sharing because it wouldn’t help anyone. I have to be true to myself, while I seek my future after the loss of a husband who guided me for over half my life. I say “guided”. That’s not quite true.
What I realize now is he held a vision created after great thought, lots of reading, and a kind of meditation while he walked on this Earth. He was drawn to Native American philosophy. Our home has over 100 books on the subject as well as writings by Herman Hesse, Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, Norman Cousins, Kahil Gibran, John Bradshaw, Jane Roberts, and more. Where he traveled, I followed. Not just in our vans or RVs, but in philosophy. What fired the understanding we shared initially was our love of this creation we call Earth. Every creek we followed, every hill we climbed, and every desert we cross was adventures in seeing and connecting with this entity we live on. Every morning to his dying day, he watched her come alive, and he thrilled to the spectacle, no matter what the weather or where we were or what we had to do.
Now, I find my day doesn’t truly begin until I take the spirit bowl outside like he did every morning. This bowl contains a bite of every food I’ve eaten the day before and prayers of thank you to the beings who gave up their forms so mine might be maintained. I place it for the sprirts of the land to consume. Usually the ravens and the blue jays are the first to arrive after I turn my back.
I’m realizing this morning ceremony is as necessary for me as a first cup of coffee is for many others. This time of prayer is my opening to say thank you again to all the spirits around me and my home for standing through the night.
One morning a few months’ ago, I cried with aloneness. Friends had gotten busy. Family was even busier. I was facing the end of 2010 on my own, and I was scared and grieving. After I was done with my request help and personal strength, I heard the quiet.
Ever so gently, the trees around me swayed while I heard the words, “Never fear. We are your family.”
I’ve begun to find peace more frequently now and can turn off the voices of the TV. I’m much less anxious about living here alone, listening to the patter of rain on the roof, the bump of animals under the house, or the thump of a stray limb falling in the forest or driveway.
I’m finding my strength in talking to the fruit trees as I prune them and turning manure into the garden. I’m feeling the blessing of the rain pelting on my head as I haul the wood inside and the caress of the heat from the fire in the wood stove. The guidance I followed when he was alive wasn’t just his. Many of the thought patterns and habits of my husband of 33 years I’m claiming as my own.
But, here I am, tripping and stumbling my way through widowhood and using this space as a way to make real to myself all that’s happening. I can’t lie to myself when I’m sharing because it wouldn’t help anyone. I have to be true to myself, while I seek my future after the loss of a husband who guided me for over half my life. I say “guided”. That’s not quite true.
What I realize now is he held a vision created after great thought, lots of reading, and a kind of meditation while he walked on this Earth. He was drawn to Native American philosophy. Our home has over 100 books on the subject as well as writings by Herman Hesse, Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, Norman Cousins, Kahil Gibran, John Bradshaw, Jane Roberts, and more. Where he traveled, I followed. Not just in our vans or RVs, but in philosophy. What fired the understanding we shared initially was our love of this creation we call Earth. Every creek we followed, every hill we climbed, and every desert we cross was adventures in seeing and connecting with this entity we live on. Every morning to his dying day, he watched her come alive, and he thrilled to the spectacle, no matter what the weather or where we were or what we had to do.
Now, I find my day doesn’t truly begin until I take the spirit bowl outside like he did every morning. This bowl contains a bite of every food I’ve eaten the day before and prayers of thank you to the beings who gave up their forms so mine might be maintained. I place it for the sprirts of the land to consume. Usually the ravens and the blue jays are the first to arrive after I turn my back.
I’m realizing this morning ceremony is as necessary for me as a first cup of coffee is for many others. This time of prayer is my opening to say thank you again to all the spirits around me and my home for standing through the night.
One morning a few months’ ago, I cried with aloneness. Friends had gotten busy. Family was even busier. I was facing the end of 2010 on my own, and I was scared and grieving. After I was done with my request help and personal strength, I heard the quiet.
Ever so gently, the trees around me swayed while I heard the words, “Never fear. We are your family.”
I’ve begun to find peace more frequently now and can turn off the voices of the TV. I’m much less anxious about living here alone, listening to the patter of rain on the roof, the bump of animals under the house, or the thump of a stray limb falling in the forest or driveway.
I’m finding my strength in talking to the fruit trees as I prune them and turning manure into the garden. I’m feeling the blessing of the rain pelting on my head as I haul the wood inside and the caress of the heat from the fire in the wood stove. The guidance I followed when he was alive wasn’t just his. Many of the thought patterns and habits of my husband of 33 years I’m claiming as my own.
Monday, February 7, 2011
A Tirade
Alright you all-powerfulness-who-is-all-around-me-and-within-me-and-all-things! What’s with this grief thing?
I can’t get around it or over it or under it, and I don’t want to stand facing it for the rest of my life. If it’s true the only way is through it, OK, I did that! After five months of it, I should be done! Right?
What’s with this new set of tears? What’s with my becoming a puddle over the broken vacuum cleaner? I’m so touchy these days. My moods shift faster than a prairie fire.
Sometimes, I feel like my upper body is disconnected from my lower body. They even seem to go in different directions at the same time. When one has pain and the other doesn’t, that’s when I feel all mixed up inside. When they both have pain together, I get overwhelmed.
I’m an intelligent woman. I should be able to control myself. Right? Wrong! No control over anything, not even my own reactions. My life is without direction except for what’s right in front of me and, sometimes, I don’t even see what that is. “Seek the balance” is good advice to myself. I’m going to watch movies now and stop pretending I have any idea what that phrase means nor how to survive this mess.
I can’t get around it or over it or under it, and I don’t want to stand facing it for the rest of my life. If it’s true the only way is through it, OK, I did that! After five months of it, I should be done! Right?
What’s with this new set of tears? What’s with my becoming a puddle over the broken vacuum cleaner? I’m so touchy these days. My moods shift faster than a prairie fire.
Sometimes, I feel like my upper body is disconnected from my lower body. They even seem to go in different directions at the same time. When one has pain and the other doesn’t, that’s when I feel all mixed up inside. When they both have pain together, I get overwhelmed.
I’m an intelligent woman. I should be able to control myself. Right? Wrong! No control over anything, not even my own reactions. My life is without direction except for what’s right in front of me and, sometimes, I don’t even see what that is. “Seek the balance” is good advice to myself. I’m going to watch movies now and stop pretending I have any idea what that phrase means nor how to survive this mess.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Writer's Block
For weeks now, I’ve been struggling to write, not even something profound, but anything that made sense. I’ve just not had the mind for it. Even now, after writing that sentence, I’ve stopped and stared for several minutes out the darkened kitchen window. No thought entered my mind.
It’s like I’m disconnected from myself and from the source of thoughts and ideas I had earlier last year. Somehow the confidence anyone was interested in my musings has gone, or is at least hidden.
I’ve been trying to figure if this is ‘just’ writer’s block or a symptom of something else. Given my previous cases of blockages, this one isn’t acting normally. I can often trip myself into writing a note or a letter. That action greases the mental wheels. I can’t seem to get energy to do that, or to write a general email to friends as to how I’m faring. I can’t write the many thank yous in answer to a basketful of well wishers. I can barely write my checks and stuff them into envelopes, let alone think up an ad campaign for my novel.
“Stuck” is the best word I can use to describe my state of mind, and yet I have great joy in talking on the phone, hiking around the property with the men I have clearing defensible space around the house. I’m enjoying TV and movies, cooking classes. I’m sewing, baking, hammering away at house projects.
I’ve decided this period of time must be ‘me’ trying to get my house in order so I can feel free to open the door for my muse to enter. She doesn’t feel comfortable trancing with her stories and characters unless our external world is in some kind of order. She must’ve wanted me to have a break from her demands so she’s kept quiet while I’ve been reorienting myself to my new life and being pampered over my birthday weekend. It could be she wanted me to have these new experiences to add depth to our work together. After all, our third novel to construct is the “Women’s Bundle” while we edit number two, "The Spirit Bundle".
So I’ve decided to accept her judgment, to give myself a break and not judge ‘me’ too harshly and therefore not judge her. Besides, what’s not to like about a little time off?
It’s like I’m disconnected from myself and from the source of thoughts and ideas I had earlier last year. Somehow the confidence anyone was interested in my musings has gone, or is at least hidden.
I’ve been trying to figure if this is ‘just’ writer’s block or a symptom of something else. Given my previous cases of blockages, this one isn’t acting normally. I can often trip myself into writing a note or a letter. That action greases the mental wheels. I can’t seem to get energy to do that, or to write a general email to friends as to how I’m faring. I can’t write the many thank yous in answer to a basketful of well wishers. I can barely write my checks and stuff them into envelopes, let alone think up an ad campaign for my novel.
“Stuck” is the best word I can use to describe my state of mind, and yet I have great joy in talking on the phone, hiking around the property with the men I have clearing defensible space around the house. I’m enjoying TV and movies, cooking classes. I’m sewing, baking, hammering away at house projects.
I’ve decided this period of time must be ‘me’ trying to get my house in order so I can feel free to open the door for my muse to enter. She doesn’t feel comfortable trancing with her stories and characters unless our external world is in some kind of order. She must’ve wanted me to have a break from her demands so she’s kept quiet while I’ve been reorienting myself to my new life and being pampered over my birthday weekend. It could be she wanted me to have these new experiences to add depth to our work together. After all, our third novel to construct is the “Women’s Bundle” while we edit number two, "The Spirit Bundle".
So I’ve decided to accept her judgment, to give myself a break and not judge ‘me’ too harshly and therefore not judge her. Besides, what’s not to like about a little time off?
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