Joy in the Fog

I want to say something about finding joy in the midst of fairly heavy chronic fatigue.

I am rewriting the book of my life. I haven't been able to work regularly for most of my life, but I have filled the gap by learning and developing some of my interests and passions and honing my skill as a writer.

This has fed me well. But I find now that taking on even small projects is very stressful because of how long it takes me to do anything, due to fatigue, brain fog (and its many children), etc.

I’m turning 67 this year. I’ve decided I don’t want to spend the last perhaps twenty years of my life struggling from project to project and feeling like I can’t take time away for other things (and people) until I finish, so I am shifting my focus onto things that give me an immediate boost, a wee spark of joy. Such as taking up singing again.

I don’t have a teacher or a choir or anything so energy and commitment demanding. I use online videos for practicing when I am able and reclaiming my voice, and I am taking some of my old repertoire off of the shelf and relearning them. As many of the songs are in Irish, this gives me a chance to relearn a little of that, but in a gentle way.

I will soon be taking a six week online course that focusses on the inspiring, sacred songs of Hildegarde of Bingen, but which is intended for a deep awakening of our voice.

I feel very happy about all of this, after nearly losing my ability to sing at all. I am not expecting miracles from the practicing or the class. This isn’t about goals, or anything that might be achieved or happen later. This is about enjoying the moments while I sing.

I may not recover — I’ve been trying all my life — but damn it, I will have joy.

Image of goofy, older white woman posing in front of gorgeous, unlit lights in Dundalk, Ireland’s market square, hours before they were lit in celebration of Brigit. Many of the lights show images of St. Brigit’s face or symbols associated with her.

Another Fine Day in Dreamland

 

A lot of people, when they lose someone, encounter them again in dreams or visions or words spoken in their ear when unexpected; a touch, a warm rush of air, a knowing that they are present although they are gone. This is not the situation with me. I have very, very rarely in my lifetime encountered a lost one in a dream and I have never simply felt their presence. But last night the clouds parted for a moment.

I’ve been feeling beset by grief again. It came up late one night — very late — and I said to it, I’m sorry, this is not the right time for you. 

Never say that to your grief.

So my grief retreated and I went to sleep and the next day and the day after that and the day after that I had a weight inside me that drained my energy and made it very difficult to go through the motions of the day. It took me a while to realise that this was my rejected grief, which retreated when commanded but simply stood behind the curtain and found its way into my consciousness in the only way it could.

Yesterday morning I had a co-counselling session with a friend of mine. Co-counselling is a slightly more elaborate form of peer counselling, where two people or three people or a whole group of people take turns as counsellor and as client. In my time as client I spoke of the many things that have been coming up that I am grateful for and happy about. Maybe halfway through I finally said, "You know, I think I may be getting a little depressed and I think it’s because of this grief that I told to go away." My friend said, "Well, do you want to talk about it now?"

So I started to talk. About Vic, of course. I just  told her how the grief was hitting me and why. I talked about having known him almost all my life, so that every part of me, every stage and condition of me, has known and loved him. And that I have loved every time of him, from the baby with the bright yellow hair that seem to be catching the sun and illuminating his beautiful face. His smile, which came so soon and so easily and so often and which again lit his entire face and lit my heart with love. I said that we all loved him, all of the family. We just loved him. So much.

I began to cry, much as my eyes are threatening to do now. Talking about my love for Vic, talking about how beautiful and wonderful and loveable he was allowed me a few moments of feeling my grief directly, in a gentle way, and allowing those tears and those sobs the attention and the expression that they need.

When I was sleeping early this morning I dreamt that I was in my physio office and they were moving things around me and I was puzzled by what was going on. Until I remembered that they’re moving down the hall to a larger location. I said, "Oh, are you moving this weekend?" And suddenly I noticed one of the people who was moving the equipment. He was a young man in his early twenties. He was looking at me as he manoeuvred the equipment to take it down the hall. His whole body was relaxed and his face was lit up with a lovely, humorous smile — just like the one you see in the picture above. To my astonishment, it was Victor. He was here, he was alive, and I thought, "Oh, my God. He’s actually feeling well enough that they’re letting him help with the move." I was so happy.

That was my whole dream. There was no conversation between us. There were no hugs, or tears, just awareness. Contact. Love and the joy of being alive, and being well enough to move.

What a wonderful gift.

Image: Victor James Arnott with our mother, Lorraine Arnott. Photo by the author, circa 1980 something.

Yard Bird Babies

I don't take a lot of photos of birds in my back yard. I'm too busy gazing at them with curiosity and delight. So once again I thank Wikimedia for supplying a stand-in image for me.

This is a white-crowned sparrow. This is the first year I've had these visitors, and they are much shyer than the chickadees and finches, far far shyer than the starlings and their young. But they've gradually decided my small enclosed yard is a safe place, with lots of food and water and plants to hide behind. They're ground-feeding birds, so I don't see them at the feeder. Sometimes they get brave and graze underneath it on fallen seeds, and since the feeder is so close to the window I get to see them frequently. But today! Ah, today.

Today I was sitting in the yard, away from the feeders so as not to be in the road, drinking my tea and pretending to read my book. A pair of adult white-crowned sparrows appeared in the yard with two very young-seeming, but large, offspring. They were maybe three metres from me at first, looking for food or, if they got close to each other, begging for food (babies), stuffing food in mouths (parents), or chasing each other off of choice tidbits.

Over several minutes they worked their way down the yard and garden toward me. I began to realise that the juveniles weren't behaving the same as one another. One worked busily, like the adults, and that was the one most likely to demand food from the folks. The other seemed a bit of a dreamer.

This one wandered slowly, by a meandering path, in my direction. I of course remain still when their are birds nearby, but I was surprised by just how close this little one came.Oh, I forgot! When still about a metre and a half away, s/he picked up a piece of food from the grass and moved it around in her beak as she carried it. It seemed like a tiny blade of grass or some such thing.

It was a feather. S/he didn't eat the feather. It was more like you or I might roll a straw around in our mouths while we ponder life. 

At last s/he was so close s/he disappeared from sight and I held my breath, waiting for a peck on my bare foot. None came. She curved back into sight and made her way over to the bird bath, which had been losing runoff into the grass below it and was now lightly trickling down. Baby hopped back in surprise when a drop landed on her. She moved forward again and hopped back again when another drop hit her. Over and over she hopped out of the stream of drips and then set into it again. She began rubbing her feathers against the wet grasses--short, to my eyes, but tall as she was and then some. At last she fluttered around in the wet grasses and miniature shower and had a lovely little bath. Last I noticed her before they all nibbled their way from the yard, she was lying belly down in the cool dirt, wings slightly extended, enjoying the sensation (presumably) as her sibling remained busily feeding on everything in sight.

It had never occurred to me that two such young birds would be so very different in personality as these displayed today. S/he didn't seem sick at all, just a bit dreamy. (I can identify; my childhood was largely spent staring at tiny insects and revelling in the sensation of walking bare foot in hot road dust and warm cow pies.)

What a wonder and a joy it has been to spend this season with the young who have spent so much time in my yard. I am grateful to their parents for bringing them, and to Erminia for renting me this place, and to B.C. Housing for subsidising my rent. It is a miracle. A miracle to see, and be, and witness.
















Image: "White-Crowned Sparrow / (Zonotrichia leucophrys)." Photo by Wolfgang Wander. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.