Bury me deep
Disappear me in the earth
Let the rich soil fill my mouth
Wanna lay to waste, lose my worth
Weave twigs in my hair
Sprinkle daisies on my chest
Do not cry, don’t despair
I’ve yearned a lifetime for this rest
Pushing Daisies
letting go
Under the Influence
There are times I should not be behind the wheel.
I am not talking about driving drunk or high. Or texting while driving.
I am talking about driving while triggered.
Some call it Road Rage. I think that is deceiving. It conjures up extreme versions of what I am talking about and makes it easy to disassociate with the images it brings up (think: The Hulk.) I am talking about driving under the influence of your emotions.
I would posit that there are at least fifty shades of grey to the emotions that can be set off while driving. And that driving while unconsciously in the throes of them is just as dangerous as being on a drug or a drink.
It is far too easy to feel slighted by some entitled asshole who cuts you off or pulls in front of you, or zooms in to take your space in the parking lot. Or someone gets cute and slices ahead of you from what is really not a lane but the side of the road. Thanks buddy. Yeah you deserve to beat us poor suckers who were following the rules.
When these kinds of thing happen, I have a rush of fear that quickly becomes anger. And sometimes, if I do not intercede in time, that anger drives me to become aggressive back. As in start driving like a nimrod.
Suddenly, my ride home becomes a primal fight for survival. My body goes into fight or flight mode.
I catch myself. My blood pressure has spiked and my jaw is clenched as I squeeze the handle of the wheel like I am squeezing the life out of the other driver who has either threatened my safety or “taken” what I perceive as mine.
I breathe deeply, and slowly breathe out again, making a conscious choice to let it go. To figuratively get back into my lane. Get out of the kill or be killed Thunderdome lane.
It is serious. I bring myself back from the edge.
I don’t recall them addressing this in drivers ed. I think it should be. A chapter on “Practicing Emotional Intelligence While Driving” could go a long way in preventing accidents. I know I am not the only one who gets triggered out there.
I am glad I know it and can choose to let it go. It’s as simple as changing lanes.
Intentional Flaw
At one time in her life, my mother used to quilt. She spent countless hours sewing beautiful creations.
She told me once that there was an Amish quilting tradition wherein the quilter would intentionally put in a flaw so as to not offend or mock the perfection of God.
They purposely plan a mistake.
I have always loved that. I don’t know if it is true or not. (If you Google it you find lots of theories and research.)
I don’t care. Meddle with it if you wish. I think it’s lovely.
It helps me, a die-hard recovering perfectionist, to think about that. To lighten up a bit about trying so hard to be perfect (whatever that means) at whatever I do.
To stitch in some intentional flaws and see where it takes me in my day.
And sew it goes.
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: meddle
Unmoored
I slipped my moorings today
Just like that
All this time they were mine to release
I thought the knots were untieable
I thought only he knew Marlinspike ways
These straining years
This drydock life
Now left behind on the shores of past pain
I have my own anchor now
I’ll set it down where I please
I slipped my moorings today
Just like that
Free Fall
I’m in the middle of a massive shift.
The last time I felt such a massive shift in my life, there were all of these external changes happening.
In the space of three years, my mother died, I planned a wedding, my brother died, I got a mortgage, bought an apartment, my father died, I got married and moved from Manhattan to the Bronx.
By the time I was settled into our new apartment, I didn’t know which way was up. I literally did not recognize the outer landscape of my life.
With so much having changed on the outside, it made sense to me that my internal landscape would need to recalibrate. I was living in a new world. I needed to find a new true north.
This time though, there’ve been no circumstances creating the pressure that precipitates such movement. This time, the shift has come solely from within, a seismic shifting of the tectonic plates of my very soul.
It is terrifying and yet so right-feeling at the same time.
Everything in my life has come into question. A massive excavation. A massive exploration.
It’s as if I have been squeezed out of myself and am born anew, looking around. And the one thing I can see clearly is that my whole life I have been in pursuit of one thing or another. Popularity, academic excellence, talent, money, happiness, fame, career success, love, a thinner body, a better me, forgiveness, acceptance, self-love, a desire to live, a desire to stop wanting to die (they are different,) peace, direction…fame (I come back to that one because that is a huge one)…you name it.
I’ve been running around like a woman with my hair on fire for as long as I can remember, and I couldn’t stop even if I had ever wanted to, and I didn’t. There were times I wanted them to stop, for life to stop, for the pain to stop, for everything to stop, for me to stop being conscious. But I never wanted and could never imagine not being in pursuit.
Until now, that is. Now, I just want to…stop.
That is the seismic shift I am in right now. I am shifting from a life of pursuit to a life of, what? What is the opposite of pursuit? I don’t know.
Is it simply being? I don’t even know what the hell that is. Is that really OK? What will happen? What if I give up the pursuit of pursuit? What will I do with my life if I do not pursue something?
Who will I be? Will I fall I back into the chasm? Will I be falling into the obscurity I have so feared?
And if I fall into the chasm of my own soul, will it be a free fall that lasts forever, or will I land on soft ground at some point? This cannot be yet another pursuit. I have to let it be whatever it is. I cannot fall back wishing it to be one way or another at the other end.
I just have to fall back. And that is terrifying and yet so absolutely right-feeling at the same time.
I’ll either see you on the other side, or I won’t. Deep breath. Here I go.
Beyond the Skinny Branches 