Sunday, August 29, 2010

More quiet

Is it the calm before the storm?
or is it the beginning of some much need quiet time?
I can not say, but today for the first time ...
in a long time, i sat quietly on the porch,
most worries leaving my mind,
clearing my heart.
I was rewarded with wonderful gifts,
a hummingbird stop to taste the bright flowers,
a band played off in the near distance,
celebrating  in a parade.
This i need,
for my mind has worn thin,
and my heart too troubled.
It is time for rest.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

A day to relax

Finally, it was a day that i was able to rest.
I did prepare for my coming trip in the morning, that had its own issues of trepidation, but then i rested.
The cobwebs and the pieces of broken thought were swept from my mind.
I felt clear.
I did not realize how much strain has been placed on me by work, it is something i do not talk about much and the most difficult part is that people do not appear to understand.
More to prepare, more to do, but i am at a different place at this moment and the anxiety that was surrounding me has left, thus there is a post.
 More to come,
not knowing what awaits me for the trip.
There will be issues to deal with,
situations to sort
and a mother who is nearing her end.
That will be its own stress,
but for now i am clear.
I do not see the future,
it is not in my hands.
It is because of this,
i can relax.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Waking

Are my dreams, but nightmares
or are my nightmares but dreams.
I must ask,
without hope for an answer.
The answers that i am so apt at finding,
they have lost their way
and i no longer know.
closed eyes with brilliant purples
and green
and gold..
pulse through my closed eyelids.
To be afraid
or not?
i still live
and laugh
 and play.
Drops of water obscure
what is already confused.
I laugh at my self,
through my new uniqueness.
Some one says, in response to a "How are you", "i am not falling apart yet".
As i whip off my glasses and say "Oh, but you are, split right in two!".
We laugh and go on our different paths.
My humor is still here,
my love still exists.
I cry out in bewilderment,
but yet i have peace.
How strange it all is
and yet there is more to come.
Much more to come.

Feeling lousy, doing better

It is the way my life has been as of late.
While i awake with my two separate images closer and closer,
I find my self with less and less balance.
The pleasant strumming in the back of my head,
becomes like the pounding of a jack hammer.
All is to be expected,
if i am getting better,
the path to wholeness is not an easy road,
but a traumatic one.
It does not make my life easy,
but hard
and i wait for it to end...

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Clairity

A light rain fell this morning,
not a torrent,
leaving great gashes in the earth,
but a gentle, soaking rain,
bring life and growth.
I wanted to say, "i think i have been selfish lately",
but those words are untrue.
I have been selfish lately,
looking for an end of this adventure,
before news ones befall me.
For my path has been strewn with obstacles and more are coming.
I have been afraid, seeking my own salvation first and not others.
A book, "The Wounded Healer" comes to mind
and i am ashamed.
i can not wait until i am well to heal others
and my heart is turned.
I sit on the porch trimming the plants in my care,
removing dead leaves and stems,
trimming growth going where it does not need to go.
Gently changing a path of one plant or another.
I understand it well,
for the garden has brought forth such bounty,
that i share it abundance
and then the best part comes,
for they then share with me and others from their own gardens.
Things i did not grow
or that did not do well for me
or are late in coming.
I see the circle
and i learn.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Silly, silly me

I am really not that smart,
for if i were i would not wear so many hats at work.
i would play the person with limitations beyond just exhaustion and vision and balance.
I would not be the mechanic, the chemist, the database administrator, the microbiologist, the entomologist, the computer programmer, the statistical analyst, the customer service representative and on and on switching out throughout my shortened day.
How silly of me to know so much, to be willing to just give away all the information i have accumulated in this bruise head.
My coworkers look at me and whisper, "he's not doing so bad." and then they leave me alone to the flood of customers and questions and samples.
My bench is full, papers and samples and reagents in unordered pills and stacks while i try to complete just one.
My friends know me better and expect little and are worried.
I am worried.
I need to get away,
but away may mean more work of a different kind,
with more emotion demanded.
Escape?
Where?
In my dreams, only in my dreams.

Silly, silly me.

Monday, August 16, 2010

plain information

For clarity i am posting this.
My eyes have made some leaps forward, the doctor in New York had the vision with the reading glasses going through hoops that i did not know they could do...very tiring.
pulled the single image, with the glasses, apart and got my eyes to put them together again.
The distance had less improvement, but improvement.
Additionally there is a real connection between blood pressure and images diplopia, the high the blood pressure, the better the vision.
There is a lot of feeling and activity in the back of my head where all the sight and optic nerves are.
This is also causing movement of the images, lots of movement, like being in an earthquake. with both images vibrating.
The glasses put them together, but at a great cost of energy.
While all of this sounds good, ti is leaving me very fatigued.

Add to this that i am trying to get down to Virginia, by train to see my mom.
My mom is telling people she is at her end, whether it is true or not, is to be seen, her doctors are skeptical of her claim.
She has moved into assisted living, but must sell her condo, which is a mess.
She is leaving that to me.

Work has not been easy, though people still think that i am very easy to talk to, the actual work is difficult and i am not getting any help.

These combined have left me in a physical and emotional roller coaster.
It is keeping me busier than i want to be as i try to let thing, so to speak, come together.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Sometimes

Sometimes there is love,
Some times despair.
Some times laughter,
Some times depression.
There are things that come into our life that are too big to handle,
it seems
and yet we get through,
again,
and again,
and yet again.
Still going through many things,
some are good,
 some have me on the edge of my seat.
some are so repetitious that i want to cry,
so i do.
Resolutions have not resolved,
life is still in flux,
I have not left,
yet.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

And the question is...

I am in a place of lots of questions.
I am seeing the doctor (head trauma specialist) and have a list of them.
I am planning a trip, to Virginia and am nervous and have lots of questions.
I am generally a bit worried, unsettled, a bit confused, more than normal.
I feel like I am shutting down my heart, because something is going to happen.
A great unease which leaves me bereft of words and thoughts.
Because of this, I have not been writing much.
It is okay, it will break soon.
Hunkering down in a foxhole to escape what i feel is coming.
I can not shake it off and many are trying to help me, to no avail.
Just get through this, just get through this in one piece.

Friday, August 6, 2010

2 years

Two years ago,
they put me to sleep,
banged and cut open my skull
and removed something awful.

I did not know my adventure would take so long,
It is not about the double vision
or my lack of balance,
tho it seems to present that way.
It has been some thing much more deep and mysterious.
Something which shook my thoughts
and beliefs
and path of life.

I did not know it would take so long.
The struggles,
 the crying,
the inexplicable joy...
almost makes sense,
but not quite yet,
there is more to come.

People have been telling me,
people i trust,
that they feel the adventure is almost at its current end.

No death is not in the offing,
but life
and living
and a change for still something more.

Soon,

It has been 2 years,
i did not think it would take this long....

Sunday, August 1, 2010

on the porch

i am on the porch,
i dream of mint salt.
An aroma of mint wakes me.
I was drying some of the mint from the garden.
Mint Salt?
I would sprinkle on top of biscuits and rolls before they bake.
The Garden has been in much demand in the kitchen.
Cilantro is the base for a non-dairy guacamole i make:
cilantro, salt, lime juice, orange juice, hot pepper and parsley are pureed
and then poured over rough cut small chucks of avocado.
It sits for a while, in the fridge, before serving.
Basil chicken with lime:
Small cut up pieces of chicken breast are marinated
with lots of fresh basil, olive oil, onions and lime juice.
Fried and served.
Okra, julienned, with scallions and hot pepper cut like-wise, fried in olive oil with salt.
In the same oil fry slices of tomato with slices of sweet red pepper.
In the same olive oil, quartered Red potatoes with Fennel, garlic and chives, also with salt to taste.
Asian Indian style hamburger:
Mint, garlic, onion and hot pepper are minced and mixed with hamburger meat and grilled.

All the vegetables are from the garden!

Living

Sitting,
quietly,
 this morning,
a slightly cool breeze
dancing on my face.
Quiet...

I hear my heart again.
Speaking softly of things that are beautiful and awful and dangerous and wonderful.

Soft, puffy clouds dance across the sky.

A visiting cat strolls by.

Activity and the serene moment is lost,

or not.

Activity and action,
that pushes my "formal" side to the front
and those things have been strong the past few days.

The minutia of details,
the communication of living.
The need to place things in a manner that can be dealt with,
Life and living.

I am reminded that i am never "alone"
and while that provides comfort,
it also requires presence.

They require my formal brain to be present
or i get lost in the clouds rushing by
and the cool breezes on my checks.