Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Nobility of the Mundane

As I sit to write this, I've just received a series of messages from my soul mate. She resides in a castle in the Hills of Nichols, yet she intuitively knows when I need her.  She has produced the softest tears in me. They are flowing steadily but without the twisted, painful emotion that would usually accompany them. I've been beaten and broken and left for dead in so many ways; yet, this moisture runinng from my eyes, down my neck and into my clothing feels as if it could, just possibly, be cleansing me.

I wipe my neck and then notice I have soaked the keyboard with my fingers. The thought occurs to me, are  my tears being transmitting electronically through this post?

When I awoke this morning, I wasn't sure where to begin. What do I do now? Should I be working on the large trees that fell into my house or should I be working on me.  Should I write, should I walk, what should I do to begin to feel human again?

Then her first message arrived, in a Jacob Marley-esque manner, forewarning me she would be sending three thoughts to me today. They began to arrive at slow, thoughtful intervals.

Message One:  Keep waking up.  Many would be in more pain than you feel now without you.

Message Two:  This time, suffering and pain brings a lesson.  Be with it, ask it questions. Listen. Learn. Pain is the crucible that brings peace.

Message Three:  While you are 'being' with the pain, remember the repetitive meditation of the ordinary. Start a load of laundry, clean the kitchen sink. Watch Nemo or Top Gun. Find the comfort and nobility of the mundane.

I sometimes wonder if it's easier to find nobility in the mundane when you live in a castle and not a house with trees in it but I must believe the universe has gone to great lengths to bring these lessons to me. The sharp popping, cracking sound at 2am that split one tree in half and hurled it into my house, and then the fifty foot tall, majestic hickory tree that was pulled from it's roots, leaving not so much as a stump of evidence that it once stood there came thundering across the fence line at 3am. I sat up in bed when I felt my house shake, looked up to the sky and said one word to God, "Seriously?".

You see, the trees were not the worst thing that happened to me this week.

My friend may reside in a castle but it's really just a fancy nest. She made it that way by always being able to find the nobility of the mundane. She found it while staring down the same demons that have possessed me. She found it while standing strong against the storms of family turmoil and gail force winds that try to take you down when you watched loved ones dying. She found it when trees were falling, not on her home but in her mind. And she brought these reminders to me today.

That was an hour ago, and the tears haven't stopped. It makes so much sense. All I have to do is start with a load of laundry, or perhaps take a shower to wash the smell of quiet yet anguished desperation off my body. Then I will simply accept and be with my lessons until the tall trees in my mind have been stripped of their leaves, branches and bark in order to make way for new growth, tiny buds of hope and the promise of a new life.

I got it Universe, I am listening. In fact, you have my full attention. Now strip me bare, cut me down to size then let me commence to grow into the direction of the sun this time, for I am so very tired of the dark.

8 comments:

  1. Blessings on you ZM. I'm so glad you have such a wise friend. I have a similar friend who lives in a castle a few hundred miles from here. I talked to her yesterday and it does my soul good.

    Did you ever read The World According to Garp or see the movie? In one scene, Garp is house hunting. As he's standing in front of one potential new home, a plane crashes into it.

    "I'll take it," he yells. "After all, a plane has crashed into it. Nothing else bad could ever happen here."

    So if I'm reading right, two trees crashed into your house. After the first one, I would've been thinking "ok, that was bad, but nothing else can happen, right?"

    Anyhow, I'm sorry for the damage, sorry for the shade you've lost and really sorry that something else worse happened that you haven't told us about yet.

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  2. I cannot begin to tell you how much this touched me

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  3. Uncanny! One of my mentor's favorite lines when I get off the charts mentally or emotionally is, "Don't forget to do the laundry."
    I suppose it goes along with that other great line - "You can't think your way into right acting, you must act your way into right thinking."
    Or - "It doesn't matter how the jack ass got into the ditch; just get it out."
    Or - "The best way to heal is to pay attention to your own ass; if your ass in in the right place, your thoughts and emotions will follow it to the right place eventually."
    Or - How about this ZM - let's email! xoxo

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  4. It's funny, because I talk to some of my friends and they are in awe of me (I'm like, bitch? Do you know me?). They think I am wise and they ask me for advice and they think I have this life of just non-stop hilarity and endless friends and I don't think they realize that I just learned to find hilarity in the mundane and I'll be friends with anyone who makes me laugh...which is different than nobility, because people think it's snide and I think they're snide for not realizing that it's not snidiness but truthiness. Yeah.

    Your friend might perhaps feel the same way about you.

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  5. I mean, your friend might view you as a bastion of honesty and strength, and be just as impressed by you as you are of her.

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  6. I think Rass is on to something.
    The most common thing I get is, "I used to be so intimidated by you." I used to think that meant I had been mean or menacing. Turns out I get that line from people who are looking for complete honesty - I do complete honesty well.
    In the middle of all that is the dialogue I have with myself about myself - that I'm messy, intense, difficult, have been through a lot and can be pretty janky, and don't have enough filters.
    Turns out people are actually interested in their own dialogue of me - not my own.

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  7. Elder - I remember the scene from that movie. I've never been one to think it can't get any worse, it spooks me just to write that. The other thing that happened this week will take some time to form words around. Thanks for the blessings. I've never been blessed by an Elder.

    Flutter - that is really why I write such personal things. It means so much to know it touched you somehow.

    Rass - Truthiness, great word. Your friends see your truthiness too, whether you believe that or not. The question is, do you see your truthiness?

    In my late 40's I consider myself blessed beyond reasonable measures when it comes to my sisterhood of girlfriends. We've grown up together. We sat on each others beds in high school and curled our hair while talking about boys. We still talk about boys, mostly the asshole ex husbands, but also the good guys that a few of us (not me) have found.

    They can see me and know what I'm thinking before I think it. This friend called that morning to say I came to her mind in an urgent way, literally telepathic communication occurred.

    This is a long way of saying thanks for the comment, I get it and you are right. I want you to think of your current friends as those that will be there for you when the trees start falling. If they're not there yet, then find them now.

    Mongo - so much wisdom in such a little space amongst the blogosphere. I love these little reminders, especially the one about the jack ass. That one applies to me right now as I'm bringing that damn ass out of the ditch as we speak. And yes, I will email.

    I agree with your thoughts on Rassles comment as well. Would you say that's why most of us pour out our lives in this public forum? We are not opposed to honesty, brutal sometimes and we are most definitely unfiltered. That other messy, intense, difficult, janky stuff is just good writing. If writing were like building a fire, our lives are the Durastone Firestart logs.

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  8. What I write in the blogosphere is equal to the way I live my life in the world-o-sphere. Luckily though, I am not often offered a podium and microphone. Therefore, it is usually just horses, dogs, cats, a husband and a few close friends who are subjected to the out loud life of The Mongo.

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