I have so much on my mind this morning I can’t sort them all. My dream, my relationship to a higher power, my broken blind, my cats paws, cheap wine, online dating, Tylenol, my red eyes, my mother…the IRS website….can they be sorted? Do they need to be?
When I’m this unsorted trying to tends to lead me to not being able to. My problem was started with a glass of cheap wine. I don’t even really like wine but a glass or a little is relaxing. Just enough before I feel myself getting hyper focused is comforting. I don’t lose control, actually I do but for me losing control is gaining it. My mind is chaotic. Unchaos causes confusion. Hyper focus. I can’t read. I can’t watch and make sense of shows, I can’t do math, I can’t log into the IRS website I can’t fix my blinds my cats like to play in, I can’t hear my mom text me when my daughter is being dropped off. One single thing will get in my mind and that’s the one single thing in my mind. I need more things in my mind than one to function. What I don’t need stuck in my mind is my relationship with a higher power at 1:00 a.m.
Also, it’s true, cheap wine is stronger. It may not say that but it’s like it’s made poorly or made better for some. It hurts more. It gives a headache like a hammer pounding. I woke with one in the middle of the night when I panicked from a dream that my cats paws came off. That they were just laying in my bed. I was so certain of this I jumped out of bed. Launching this cat into the dresser. Once I settled again she laid back forgivingly right next to my face and places her one paw out on my face. Like she always does.
Then, I lay there thinking of my dad. He used to say that if you want to make the universe laugh, tell it your plans. The last thing I need to do is question a higher power in the middle of the night with a head pounding. A piece of tuna sandwich stuck in my tooth I can’t have fixed because it’s really not an emergency. No dental work during pandemics. My eyes are itchy from pollen counts. One is already weird from a blood vessel popping when I pulled something too heavy alone to avoid asking for help pulling something too heavy. I always have a broken blood vessel in my eye. Anything from pooping to running to just trying to open cheap wine can make my blood vessel pop. My eyes look like coronavirus eyes. I scare others. Just not me.
I have children’s Tylenol. That’s it. For a headache. I have to chew them. I just never have pain medications because I just avoid and or deal with pain. Until I get a headache. It’s not like I’m a migraine sufferer, I sought out to relax and save money. I rarely buy cheap wine. But, everyone under the sun and moon is buying expensive ones. Probably because most know the cheap wine thing after buying cheap wine too many times during the stay at home orders… I prefer really expensive chardonay. It takes me weeks to months to get through. I couldn’t get it at my store and I won’t go to any other stores right now. I’ve been in and out of one this whole time and will not change until this ends. It has few people. It has more space. It has cocoa wheats, just no expensive wine right now.
Then I start thinking of my dads words. He sometimes said universe and sometimes said God. One and the same to him. Not one and the same to me. I don’t not believe in God. I have a lot of questions first. I could be getting closer. I believe things are out of my control. Most things. I believe I have very little say in an outcome, occasionally. I believe I’m very tiny in comparison to the universe. Until I feel bigger than the universe. I believe I am in it and it is in me. Until I think about it. The big something else out there.
My dad had his faith, his spirituality, religion and his beliefs so neatly balanced. He found a way to make science and the universe and God and even the story of Jesus and add the dinosaurs neatly into a package of himself. All inside himself that worked. He didn’t talk about it. He didn’t preach as they say. He was a cantor in his church choir which was catholic which he changed over to to be the same religion, not faith, as my mom. His wife. He would sing with gusto because he loves to sing with gusto and hear himself bounce off the church walls and stained glass windows. He never pushed us girls into a religion or belief. He showed us you can have several and still believe. In that something bigger out there. Until I think about it.
I have questions. For God. A good interview would clear things up. My dad says talk to Him then. So I do. I am not always getting answers back. I’m talking to myself and talking back to myself. He is everywhere even inside me my dad says. I ask how that could possibly be when I can’t see it. Dad says it’s a feeling. You don’t see feelings you feel them. You don’t hear them. But I can’t feel it. Sometimes when I do it is painful not comforting. The questions. They are painful. They lack answers. How do I feel it to know it’s there?like a touch? You can’t. You have to believe. In what?
That something way bigger than anything. It makes some things just, easier. If it’s unthought of and just believed. The more you do it the more you will feel it. Like a touch. Only it won’t be a touch. Let go of the questions. How?
I felt it once. Maybe even more than that. I was sitting at a stoplight one morning and it dawned on me that I felt close to the universe on my last backpack trip. I had wondered off in a miserable torrentiel downpour to get to the top of a small mountain that faced east to watch the sunset the next morning. I made a plan. It was super specific. It went nothing at all like I planned. Like all my plans. I’m not even sure why I make them. It rained so much I surrendered to the fact I wouldn’t see the sunrise. I slept hard from walking too fast to get to the top too early. I woke wet but warm from the morning dew. It stopped raining. I just gave up and let go of my plan. After about an hour I was ready to pack up and the air just lifted. Just right before my eyes I turn and the air moved away. The heavy damp air vanished and I see the sun peaking. It was a clouds parting and sun coming through moment. Clarity. Everything and nothing made no sense. I had zero questions. I felt sorted out. I cried. I dropped my tent poles. It was the most beautiful moment I can remember. I’m crying now thinking of it.
Sitting at that stoplight it dawned on me that I just felt close to something. It was me. It was the universe and it was really both. It was the most ridiculous thought at a stoplight. But that’s what they are there for. To make you stop. Stop and sort. I was honked at to go. I wanted to not go. To sit and sort. To stop. Get sorted out.
Aspenleaf 