If I am Lost It's Only for a Little While...

Fragments from This Week's Journal

A Walk in the Creek with Helga

I’ve had an emotionally capricious week which can be attributed to many things. As I pulled at the Stiltgrass in my hard-to-see path into the woodland, words, finally! began to crawl and scratch back in.

I did so much moving this week, movement being the thing that — until this week — has always saved me from uncomfortable dips in spirit. This week took a lot more effort just to stay a float. Whilst my activity score was high, my output was hazy.

I decided to skip Substack. I began to question my sticking to it for the sake of sticking to it. It was settled. But in the flurry of the morning’s sounds and slithering, I realised the doing is the thing.

The rain is back and with it a chill most weird and welcome for June. The garden is exploding and I eat from it daily. I’ve not dug out the still alive Sweet Shrub from under the fallen Poplar, tangled in the massive rootball. I’ve not done most of the things I’d love to do here. I don’t slow down enough to trust time.

I turned on the poorly edited Wim Hof breathing session — something I’ve never added to my daily doings, yet often wish for. I did it. More fidgets. What is it that is crawling out or crawling in?

A somewhat stranger texts “Does your afternoon or night self have any issue with what you write in the morning?”

Well, ain’t they just like monsters! They come to feed on us!*

I am a different person from last Thursday. I am always a different person. Changing at the slightest thing. In half-moon pose in yoga class, my spine began to pop and shift, pop, shift. Imagine falling down the steps on your ass. Each clunk felt that significant. It never hurts but it sounds like it should. It brings me into alignment. Cave collapse along with passageways and secret rooms all filled with who-knows-what. Shouldn’t I have felt the leaving and named the things I was holding onto?

I could not.

Not yet, anyway.

The Nothing of Nothingness

In the darkness
golden, glowing fire
like two eyes
with strings
pulling warmly
I wish to jump in
but don’t know if
returning to what was
will be an option
for anyone.
So nothing?
No gardens,
no persimmons,
No, not even breathing…

I toggle back and forth between two books wishing I’d finish one and then move on to the other.

one: Poser My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer

the other: The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

Helga Brush Roll by Peg and Awl