Spinning Wheel
If I live to be eighty, then I have forty-five more years left to spend working on all the things that I wish I was working on this second. I
have more ideas, life goals, and projects in mind than I could possibly
finish in one lifetime, and I’m still coming up with them. I am about
to revamp my website to feature my Art, Floral and Writing streams. Some
would consider those three separate careers. I dabble with the idea of
starting a brewery, kombucha company, or farm/B&B with my husband,
and in between all of the dreams, I’m grasping at my son’s fleeting
childhood.
This rolling to do list and constant comparison causes disappointment and stress, and worst of all, has kept me from fully enjoying the things I should be enjoying now, like racing cars and walking to the beach with my son.
Time has been slowing for me since January 26. I woke up with swollen lips and have spent the last two months trying to figure out what my body is reacting to, all the while slowly declining from swollen and itchy to completely immobile and sleeping around the clock. I have spent the last two weeks on my couch under piles of blankets watching the days go by my sunroom windows, simultaneously anxious, apathetic, and completely content.
I grabbed a book from my shelf on my way into the hospital last Saturday. It takes place in England, America, Ireland and India, is un-chronological and jumps through different decades of the characters’ lives. 1 As I waded into it, slowly, for three days in my windowless room in the Emergency Observation Unit, a new sense of time passing and the concept of a lifetime washed over me. 2
It would surely be life changing for me to know now that yes, someday I get a bad ass, sun-drenched, art studio with oodles of time to make, read, write and ponder all of the things. If I knew now that I would soon find the time and space to grow my own food, I could finally forgive my city backyard/patio for being its’ small, shaded, cement, self. Even if I read ahead in the book of my life, and it turned out that right now is the best it gets, that shit is actually falling apart, I would surely take all of today to walk to the beach with my son. I could happily let all my creative ambitions float away and soak in everything that is so perfect in my life as it is right now.
As I laid on my couch in February and March, I wanted to write. I remember being aware of the thoughts chugging slowly through my head. I remember feeling as if they were settling in, one at a time. I remember having the notion that I was processing information, and I wanted to make notes as I usually do, but couldn’t find the energy, or a pen. I can see clearly now, the shift that my mind needs to make, or already has made, to slow down, to be in a hurry less. I can see that right now is the time for being Mom, and right now is the time to heal and become steady. Right now is the time to love my people. I believe the trick here, is to not lose this sense of clarity.
It feels important to note that near the beginning of this whole episode, in early February, I lost a very good friend, or Sue, my Third Mother. 3 Her sudden death happening in the midst of my sudden decline in health added a whole layer of surreality to my life. The afternoon before I heard about Sue I had been meditating. When I found that quiet space in my head a wheel appeared, filling my entire vision. It was spinning quickly yet I remained steady. I've never had this sensation while meditating before which seemed to un-hinge me in a way. It was incredibly easy for me to grasp onto this visual and my brain went silent. After meditating, I remember feeling specifically tuned in, or quiet, or connected, for the rest of the afternoon, until my mom called me in tears. In the last months, when I’ve mustered the energy to meditate, or just breathe intentionally, this spinning wheel has continued to come back to me, or I to it.
I’m wondering today, in my re-found state of alertness, if this spinning wheel could be an insight to the essence of time; non-linear and spiralic. What if lifetimes are better understood un-chronologically? Or what if life is better not understood at all, but taken humbly, in small increments of clarity, like chapters in a book.
This rolling to do list and constant comparison causes disappointment and stress, and worst of all, has kept me from fully enjoying the things I should be enjoying now, like racing cars and walking to the beach with my son.
Time has been slowing for me since January 26. I woke up with swollen lips and have spent the last two months trying to figure out what my body is reacting to, all the while slowly declining from swollen and itchy to completely immobile and sleeping around the clock. I have spent the last two weeks on my couch under piles of blankets watching the days go by my sunroom windows, simultaneously anxious, apathetic, and completely content.
I grabbed a book from my shelf on my way into the hospital last Saturday. It takes place in England, America, Ireland and India, is un-chronological and jumps through different decades of the characters’ lives. 1 As I waded into it, slowly, for three days in my windowless room in the Emergency Observation Unit, a new sense of time passing and the concept of a lifetime washed over me. 2
It would surely be life changing for me to know now that yes, someday I get a bad ass, sun-drenched, art studio with oodles of time to make, read, write and ponder all of the things. If I knew now that I would soon find the time and space to grow my own food, I could finally forgive my city backyard/patio for being its’ small, shaded, cement, self. Even if I read ahead in the book of my life, and it turned out that right now is the best it gets, that shit is actually falling apart, I would surely take all of today to walk to the beach with my son. I could happily let all my creative ambitions float away and soak in everything that is so perfect in my life as it is right now.
As I laid on my couch in February and March, I wanted to write. I remember being aware of the thoughts chugging slowly through my head. I remember feeling as if they were settling in, one at a time. I remember having the notion that I was processing information, and I wanted to make notes as I usually do, but couldn’t find the energy, or a pen. I can see clearly now, the shift that my mind needs to make, or already has made, to slow down, to be in a hurry less. I can see that right now is the time for being Mom, and right now is the time to heal and become steady. Right now is the time to love my people. I believe the trick here, is to not lose this sense of clarity.
It feels important to note that near the beginning of this whole episode, in early February, I lost a very good friend, or Sue, my Third Mother. 3 Her sudden death happening in the midst of my sudden decline in health added a whole layer of surreality to my life. The afternoon before I heard about Sue I had been meditating. When I found that quiet space in my head a wheel appeared, filling my entire vision. It was spinning quickly yet I remained steady. I've never had this sensation while meditating before which seemed to un-hinge me in a way. It was incredibly easy for me to grasp onto this visual and my brain went silent. After meditating, I remember feeling specifically tuned in, or quiet, or connected, for the rest of the afternoon, until my mom called me in tears. In the last months, when I’ve mustered the energy to meditate, or just breathe intentionally, this spinning wheel has continued to come back to me, or I to it.
I’m wondering today, in my re-found state of alertness, if this spinning wheel could be an insight to the essence of time; non-linear and spiralic. What if lifetimes are better understood un-chronologically? Or what if life is better not understood at all, but taken humbly, in small increments of clarity, like chapters in a book.
1
This Must be the Place, by Maggie O’Farrell features Niall, a young
detective who employs the use of footnotes, which I have always loved.
2 My brain is back in action as of today, March 26! I have a diagnosis, am currently on some new and powerful drugs while we nail down some triggers and am generally on the up and up, in case you’re concerned :)
3 For the second time in my life, I have found that in death people need to be named. How do you describe to someone ‘a family friend passed away’ when she was not just a friend, or just your family’s friend? What do you call her when she was someone who loved you just less than her own children, who had been there for your entire life, either actually present, or tracking you through the grapevine. What do you do now with the knowledge of the different variations of her laugh: sarcastic, real, wine, and her somehow still adorable snort laugh? What do you call someone who never hesitated to brush your bangs from your face in the middle of conversation? The smell of her when she leaned in would bring swirls of my childhood to mind. There are only so many people in the world that one is able to be complete and honest with, that you say I love you to easily, and simultaneously without a thought and with all the thought in the world. How do you explain to everyone who needs to know that this is who has left the earth and that you now have an un-fillable void in your life?
2 My brain is back in action as of today, March 26! I have a diagnosis, am currently on some new and powerful drugs while we nail down some triggers and am generally on the up and up, in case you’re concerned :)
3 For the second time in my life, I have found that in death people need to be named. How do you describe to someone ‘a family friend passed away’ when she was not just a friend, or just your family’s friend? What do you call her when she was someone who loved you just less than her own children, who had been there for your entire life, either actually present, or tracking you through the grapevine. What do you do now with the knowledge of the different variations of her laugh: sarcastic, real, wine, and her somehow still adorable snort laugh? What do you call someone who never hesitated to brush your bangs from your face in the middle of conversation? The smell of her when she leaned in would bring swirls of my childhood to mind. There are only so many people in the world that one is able to be complete and honest with, that you say I love you to easily, and simultaneously without a thought and with all the thought in the world. How do you explain to everyone who needs to know that this is who has left the earth and that you now have an un-fillable void in your life?
If
the sand we trudge through is born from the stars, then all that we
know are the remnants of something more. Everything that is fresh and
bursting is born from the same heap of ash.
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