Lessons from the stillness

This "intermission" period has been the gift I didn't want-- wide gashes of time and the salt of loneliness. A few weeks ago, I went to a doctor's appointment and checked off too many boxes on the depression/anxiety analysis checklists leading to gentle questions about my state of being. I assured my doctor, and myself, that this was temporary, due to transitions and boredom. Yet, I teared up walking home feeling overly sensitive to kindness and the strange weight that feelings gather when they're named and spoken.

Melancholic states have been a consistent shade of my moods. I recently spent some time reflecting and perusing old journals and realized I started writing about sadness when I was ten, and it was born from the sparks of boredom and loneliness. Though there are multiple components, I have been finding calm in faith that there is meaning enough in the ordinary.  I haven't yet articulated for myself how but I learning a deeper honesty within myself to recognize the roots of my highs and lows, to know when to sit with them and when to let them go. Lists make me feel like I have a plan and so I have written things like: hydrate. don't avoid conflicts. limit rumination time. take a walk. do a headstand. communicate. read. socialize at least 2x a week.
*

What do we do with a world broken beyond one generations mend? 
We cannot offer salvation, but we are homes to each other. 
to plant a garden
a sequoia
                to spread a blanket
                to thank "all my relations"
to be grateful for cool water
to count myself rich

"eventually one must come to rest"
the poets spin the world to magic for us
again and again
a slight of hand
                     
                     what I wanted to do was listen
                     to every life

"shatter me God into my thousand sounds"

                    press a leaf between the pages
                    nurture every seed to full expression
                                              to reflect and draw
                                              from their depths

to remember that prayer reiterates our values
by what we give thanks for

to pray
with warn palms
with nubs of candles
with all the salt and water of my body
                       
                     to hold all I could
                     bear of witness
                     to hold inside my
                     skin and muscle
                     sinew and bone
an atlas of our internal landscapes
to press everyone's stories to my lips- to bless the
wounds, to acknowledge the carnage of being

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