I’ve felt the need to ignore the news. I’ve felt the need to seek meaningful distraction. I want feeling over analysis and attempted rational loops of thinking.
The election. They told us not to talk about it at work, both the university and the county, large areas to not say a word. It’s like a dysfunctional family. A bad thing happened, don’t open your mouth. Keep it silent.
We talked about it anyway.
On Monday I went to Provisions where I got an oat milk cappuccino and avocado toast. That’s my identity politics. Wore my North Face jacket, also part of my identity uniform. On my way to pick up my drink, others looked up from their croissants. Things seemed normal, everyone has an identity.
Somehow I found a show on OPB about dementia care givers. I thought now why watch such a thing right now, this will be hard and very possibly sad and maybe a bit heavy and is this really the time for that and I said yes, it most definitely is.
So I watched wine, women, and dementia. I highly recommend. Incredible.
Then I watched another dementia focused short on Kanopy and this was about a male couple where one is hit with dementia and the other caregives. Their relationship continues though quite differently.
I am reorienting. Doing a bit of centering while walking ordinary places.
I took two breaks from work, each about 20 minutes. I walked east the first time and noticed things I usually walk by and maybe look at but don’t linger.
The second time I walked north and again noticed where I was.
I’m thinking about things I will do more now that I watch considerably less news. I will read more. I will swim more.
I will make more soup.
I swam on Saturday. I started writing a poem:
Water Remedy
When I’m in the water
It could be a different century
When I’m swimming I write this poem
In the water no one can hear my poem
It is absorbed into the silence of the water
I try to cup it in my hands
I listen to its sound travel underwater like
A prop motor across the lake
I go in and out bobbing my head and breathing air into water back to air
Water says “settle”
Bubbles say “rise”
Body says “follow-through”
Air says “there is always oxygen in water.”
Sunday I didn’t go swimming, I cooked soup with potatoes and split peas. It tastes like being rooted and earthy.
I’m not going to stop trying. I can still make a difference.
Here’s a poem my friend sent me by Carol Bialock:
I embrace the world this morning,
hold her in my arms a long moment
and decide never to let her go,
never to return to safety,
never to say, “It’s none of my business.”
It is.
Maybe there should be a ritual
when we come of age,
when we’re old enough to respond,
“I do,”
to the most crucial question:
“Do you love this world?”
Perhaps that will be the final question:
“Have you truly, deeply, faithfully
loved this world?”
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