Where is my comfort?

 I seek comfort in my heating pad

When there is no body to warm my back.

I crave comfort in those early treats served to sooth a hurt:

A cookie, a piece of cheese, buttered bread.

My mouth opens like a baby bird’s

To foods that no longer serve me,

With flavors lasting only moments.

I whimper for the comfort of strong arms in a hug

And lips to whisper across mine.

I seek comfort in activity: a play here or a dance there

Sitting on organizational boards somewhere, everywhere

Until I sicken from too much thinking,

From being too responsible,

From keeping up the false face of ease.

Comfort then becomes my bed, my bath, my couch.

Silence and solitude,

Alone and self-attended.

Comfort, I am learning,

Is like happiness.

It’s an inside job.

Earlene Gleisner

From “That’s the Spirit” (a work in progress)

January 2015

The Travesty of a Tapestry

     Another person from the fabric of my life has left the pattern. Someone who intersected my days in unexpected ways then ran parallel with me for the last seven years.

     When we were together, I was as comfortable as a softened robe worn in an evening, with large sleeves that puddled across my chest when I held my arms together to seek ease or relief and with big pockets where partially-used Kleenexes lived on top of stale chocolate kisses in their silver wrappings, a stray cotton swab, and a toothpick.

     Carol was everything I needed whenever we came together. We didn’t live in such proximity that we knew each other’s movements by heart. There was enough separation, so that it was fun to catch-up when we had a moment or an hour to share.

     The thing is, this loss is a little like losing my long-term companion. I’ve not just lost the living with her in the now, but I’ve lost one more person who shared my history, who had knowledge of where I came from, and could reminisce with me about memories of what was once. Events we experienced were touchstones, ones we held as unique points of each other’s foundations. She was in my past when I first came to Laytonville, thirty-seven years ago. She faded as our lives went in opposite directions, but then we came together again to share the new and unwanted perspectives of widowhood.

     I am a little mad about this loss and the fact that we don’t get do-overs in our lives. I can’t unravel the weft or the warp and add a few more yarns or threads of cotton to provide me with more options of comradeship toward the end of my life, so that I’m not left dangling all alone. I could never have replaced Carol, but I might have had the idea to pick up additional and younger filaments/friends along the way. Then, when one as precious as Carol has left, I could have more around me until the length of my own fiber ran out.