Monday Musings

Some of you know I am in a writers group. I look forward to our Monday nights together in my friends studio, reading to one another. I look forward to the laughter and tears shared with this handful of women I have grown close to over the last year. Their stories have enlarged my world and changed my heart. I decided that Monday should be the morning here, on my blog, where I share a piece of myself out of writers group. This is something I wrote and shared this Spring.
The bacon sizzles, the dishwasher sloshes and hums, the car starts and roars through its gears, another day has begun. Time to do. Time to go. I know I used to be a human be-ing. But in my rush to achieve, I became a human do-ing. My life's rhythm changed from doo-be doo-be do..., to Do! Go! Do! Go! Do, do, do.
I sent a message to a friend who had kind of fallen off the map. I had the feeling her life had turned to do do too, but I hoped she was glad in it. The story I heard back was sad. Her kitchen caught fire, she was okay except for a badly burnt hand. Her basement flooded. And her 3 kids all had the swine flu. Here is how out of it I am. I drove by the drugstore the other day and I read the sign: get your hini shot here. I thought, they don't give those shots in the rear do they? Are folks dropping their drawers in the Walgreens? Later I realized it said H1N1. Anyway, her kids are better now, but they all had it.
Her message was a wake up call for me. I made a mental note. Do not try to cook and sew at the same time. No matter how Rory complains at the lack of variety on the menu, DO NOT cook and sew.
Right after replying to her message, Rory and I went for a hike at Indian Painted Rock. At the spot where we look forward to acres of Iris later in the season, I caught the spicy fragrance of something we have never been able to single out. It is a wonderful scent that always makes us stop in our tracks and linger to breathe a little deeper. As I stood there, I looked down at the slope next to the path. New grass was coming up and the sun was warm, calling the earth back to life. I felt Spring inside of me too. I felt a need to connect my Spring to the larger one. I suggested we lie down on the slope and soak up some sun. As I lay there, feeling the cool of the earth on my back and the warm sun on my face, I opened my eyes just enough to see cumulus clouds in the distance amid a slice of clean, blue sky. A tear dropped down my cheek. That is me there, the human be-ing. Lying on the ground, next to my husband who is quite content just to be with me. Soaking up the sun. Fragile, and turbulent as the Spring itself. Ready to grow. Not sure I am ready to be, yet here I am.