Awakenings

The Texas Red Oak in my front yard clings to its leaves long after other trees stand bare. Lately, those leaves have appeared on the back patio. Somehow the wind plucks them, carries them over the house and dumps the load. I’ll sweep up one batch, and if there’s a wind, a new, neatly sculpted mound waits for me the next morning.

But yesterday the leaves were all blowing west, straight down the street. We’re expecting wind chills of below zero tonight.

I took Sophie for a walk after her supper, thinking she’d rush back inside. Instead, she put on speed (a speed this poky dog rarely demonstrates!) and rushed along in full enjoyment. This morning, back to her usual snail pace searching for smells, I decided the wind had been doing that job for her—like having her head out a car window which she never gets to experience.

The New Year has blown in too—and I feel my brain slowly coming alive, my life gradually taking off in new directions.

For much of last year I felt half-asleep, spending long hours lulling myself reading familiar fiction or watching DVDs, especially TV mystery series that go on and on. How else to bury my pain. How else to mask my helplessness over Gaza, and the evils of all the meaningless, wasteful destruction of lives. Wars provide a way of ignoring the change needed to heal our feverish world.

On New Year’s Day I watched my old car get hauled away to auction for a local NPR station. I hadn’t expected to grieve. After all, I’ve been wishing to upgrade that noisy vehicle for years!

But then came that great wash of sorrow. We purchased the car together; it regularly carried us both around town. I had to honor its memory.

My grief group, begun in October, has done a good job of helping me keep losses at the forefront of my mind—rather than letting me tamp them down. Now, when something triggers that sense of loss, I welcome it. I indulge it, because the pain reminds me of the good times we shared, and of how fortunate I have been.

Friend Rumi says it so well in The Guest House, as translated by Coleman Barks:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

May it be so.