Like a polaroid
I find less need to write when I am content with where I am in life. I think writing is my way of releasing tension and with less tension and more time, I find myself knitting, playing music and cooking more and spending less time harboring rifled feelings.
That being said, I think writing is healthy for me and could possibly be helpful sometimes for any one who may read this. I guess one day my goal is to assemble a book of wonderful stories, helpful notes and hilarious asides. For now, just tidbits.
My grandmother died recently and it was so much less painful that I thought it would be. Perhaps because we knew it was coming months before it did, perhaps because due to many trials and other things in my life, death is not as severe as I once thought it was, or perhaps the last few years of contact with my grandmother made her seem as if she was already lost to me. Whatever to reason or combination of reasons, my biggest sorrow in the whole affair was the effect the loss might have on my mother, who was as close to her mother as I am to her, VERY CLOSE.
The last time I saw my grandmother before her death, I sat silently while my mother talked to her, answered her questions, made her tea, helped her eat yogurt and changed her clothes and bed sheets. I felt useless and solemn and sad. Sad that my grandmother had such pain and confusion before death, sad that all her lovely things that made up all my memories of her would never be seen again. Her square amethyst ring that I remember catching in my hair when she patted my head or helped to braid it. Her soft slippers she wore everywhere. Her endless array of marshaled lipstick tubes and Mary Kay blush pots. Like soldiers, prepared for beauty battle. She was a beautiful, troubled and overwhelmed person and I am always sorry I did not know her more.
I've never been good at feeling like something is done. I revisit the task, the conversation, the memory until I have to swallow hard and push it away. Like those little boats on lake water, bobbing, but always finding their way back to shore, lapping waves carrying them back to my unwelcome brain.
It's my goal to try and be more loving always, less gossipy, less judgmental and more aware of how precious time is to us on earth. Being loved and needed goes a long way to making me aware of the rapid succession of days that pass. It helps me feel fulfilled if all I have done is made one person's life a bit easier.
Precious people, dear friends, new acquaintances, be safe, love often and a lot and find ways to make yourself think more, think brighter, be bolder, push yourself further and see how far you can reach north and south and east and west, because all you have is ONE life. Do not fritter it away with worrying, with over analyzing, with complaining, with details and soggy words weighted with the wetness of an ungrateful spirit. I am ever guilty of these things and while I know it's impossible to stop, I will do my damnedest to try.
Happy Snow Day
Slainte
~BRM
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