I'm Not Thinking About

A recent picture taken of the house I grew up in. It it almost 100 years old, being built in 1926

Sarah Blondin, recently offered two prompts that she utilizes to get herself back into the seat of her heart, and writing again. The two she shared are, I’m not thinking about, and I don’t remember.

I’m not thinking about:

• The gift of breathing, how my lungs inhale, exhale, and know what to do without my having to consciously think about it.

• How I awaken each morning, place my feet upon the floor, and realize, oh, I’m still here. Perhaps there’s a reason why? Most likely I’m still in Earth School, with more excavating to do.

• How the sun rises and sets daily, no matter what has happened internally or externally.

• How the seasons change on a tropical island. So subtly, yet they do, and I truly was unaware of it my first few years living here.

• The fact that I don’t like to think. It’s my natural habitat to be a feeler, rather than a thinker, thus, the prompt, I’m not thinking about is most likely the truest way to describe me.

• I am not thinking about … how the environment sustains and supports us; breathing; all the mechanics of a thriving body; how a moon of dark and light is synonymous with inhales, exhales and the embrace of the space in-between.

• The disease of addiction, and how terrifying it is when one’s beloveds are fully submerged within the depth of that bottomless, murky ocean of insanity and chaos. Sobriety IS such a precious gift, and one that I give thanks for daily. Never, ever taken for granted, as it lives dormant within my rib cage.

I don’t remember:

• The names and correct grades of each of my elementary school teachers.

• The first three years of child loss. It’s a blur, foggy. I was living in an alternate universe, sending my representative out into the world to do my bidding.

• When I began to rely more on myself, and my intuitive nudges, than solely listening and depending upon the outside world.

• The exact date I met Richard, my husband. We go back and forth on this. It was after his mid January birthday and before my mid February birthday in 1979. I wish I had the exact date, as dates are meaningful and important to me. I cannot make one up either. It’s not a choice. Lol!

• I don’t remember moving to New York at age two. I was told I walked up and down the aisle of the airplane for the entire flight from St. Louis to New York. I was sound asleep in the back of the car, when my dad drove up the driveway to our house. My mother came running out wondering what had happened as she could not see me?

• I don’t remember when my acute grief slowly turned a corner after the loss of Douglas? My senses awakened to hearing the wonders of nature, I began dreaming in vibrant colors again, and my heart mind, and body began to catch up with one another and to merge.

You may wonder how one can write about what cannot be remembered? That’s the mysterious alchemy of it. The memory is sparked, and what may deem to be forgotten, comes trickling in slowly perhaps through a side or back door?

What I’m not thinking about may feel surprising and curious? It is for me as well. As I am writing this, my constant thoughts about those last very hard months for our beloved Zuke, have scooted over. Creating space for this wiggly love bug of a Trinie girl, to help stitch our hearts back together. When she’s experienced a really good moment, we can’t help but wonder if Zuke is giving her his download of what helps his parents? I have no doubt he is, because it’s his way of discovering additional ways to continue to live on through her.

I love these words from the poem Stitching it Together by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: (Shared by Tara Brach)

...I do not turn away

from the stories that make me weep.

I am willing to be ferocious — to stand up for what I know is true.

But I study what is beautiful,

what is generous. I offer it my devotion.

Even in this moment writing this poem,

I stitch in the pauses and the stumblings —

these, too, are beautiful because they are true.

I stitch in the pure potential that steep in uncertainty. I stitch in silence. I stitch in hope.

Miss Trinie, almost 11 wks old, making herself right at home