Haiku Horizons, DECLINE

Time, age, loved ones howl

sharp decline, ghost eyes, scared, sad

Lost memory weeps.

 

 

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Spicy woman laughs

declines help, dances with joy

eyes sparkle with hope.

 

 

 

 

 

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Jobless, hungry, poor

Decline of country’s spirit

We weep for children.

The Art Of Keeping Pancakes Warm

Pancakes (Photo credit: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton)

Emotions often overlap, sometimes they are hard to distinguish, or they are hard to separate, sometimes they coexist, they hold each others hand, their fingers intertwined. Sometimes there’s a base and if not resolved things pile on top of it like a stack of freshly made pancakes, each one giving off heat. The first pancake starts the flow of the heat which rises into the air. Soon, we add another pancake and then another to make a stack; each pancake produces heat adding heat to the bottom, the first  pancake, not taking heat away from it.

Usually its easy for me to figure out what I’m feeling, I generally pride myself on knowing how or what I feel, not that I think it’s a fabulous trait to have because many times it is overwhelming. Recently, In the past few weeks I seem to have lost that trait, I have absolutely no idea how I feel, I don’t feel anything strongly, hate, compassion, appreciation; I don’t feel anything at all. If I feel anything its emptiness in a very cool, detached way, like reading a book of a different culture that I have no interest in whatsoever. I feel like a different person, cool, calm, detached.

This is not me.

If I stayed like this my life would be a million times easier but somewhere, deep in the bottom of my soul, I know, that there is a catalyst waiting to happen, a word or a memory, that will make all my emotions come flooding back. For now, I’m probably resisting it and I can’t lie, it feels like a vacation. A dull, boring vacation in a zombie time zone but for a roller coaster woman like me, I’ll take it. I will jump in with gratitude In one split second because now, I don’t want to analyze it, think about it and most of all, deal with it. If this is a break from dealing with heavy things, I’m in, thank you very much.

We have all gone through love, hate, grief but now I feel numb. I choose numb now because numbness gets me through the days. I am not sobbing on the bed, my cheeks and eyes are not swollen and red, I’m taking a breather.  I know, soon enough, that dam will break and I will probably learn new information that I need to be ready for because once again, if I choose to hear the new information, my life will change forever.

For as long as it lasts, numb will be satisfactory. I know it’s not a steady job, just temporary, a respite from unhappiness and doubt but if happiness and knowledge elude me than I would be honored to take up residency. There’s also: Sad, Mad, Love, Grief, Hate, Happy, Sensitive, Unaware, Raw, Grieving, Disbelief, Guilt, Sorrow, Pain, Game, Delusional, etc….No person is just one thing. We are all complicated beings, we all make mistakes. We are faulty human beings so pick whichever traits you want or have, learn from mistakes and then move on. Do the best you can in the present. Don’t look to the past, don’t worry about the future, your destiny is here with you now, staring you in the face, the sweet smell of pancakes wafting in the air, warm amber-colored maple syrup poured from a white pitcher to enjoy on your pancakes while you contemplate. Treat yourselves well.

Decluttering My Life

Clutter (Photo credit: marlana)

First, I thought I might be a hoarder, and believe me I am in no way making a joke out of this. I read that hoarding starts with keeping sentimental things. If that’s how it starts then I am in big, big trouble. If I look around my house, though, the clutter is really just in my bedroom and my (once) big walk-in  closet. You can’t walk into it anymore. I ‘m scared, truly scared, as I look around my bedroom filled with Diet Snapple bottles and magazines, candles, plates, lavender moisturizing creams, piles of paper… I need to breathe, I  need to breathe.  Other rooms in the house “look” fine, for example: the living room but my room and my closet are humiliating and filled with junk. Boxes and boxes, laundry baskets and laundry baskets filled with everything but laundry.

If I declutter my house, will my head and heart be clearer too?

Lately, I have misplaced things too. My keys, my sunglasses, my plane ticket,  lipstick, my book, my jacket. Also, recently I have been very stressed out, emotionally. This is MORE than my nemesis Fibro Fog from Fibromyalagia. I misplace one thing after another, panicking and starting the cycle over again. There has to be a connection here I’m trying to slow myself down, so far it isn’t working. It’s not amusing when I “lose” something, my daughter helps me find it, ( I always find things,) I misplace things rapidly. I need to slow down.

I can’t deal with anything when I am feeling so overwhelmed. I need to start cleaning and organizing now, actually yesterday. I feel the stress in my stomach. I always feel stress first in my stomach, is that just me or does it happen to everyone? The tender points in my neck and shoulders are all raw, tap me lightly on a tender point and I will let out a blood-curdling scream. Last week the edge of my husband’s sleeve brushed against me and my scream was so awful and so loud that it scared both of us. Damn disease.

Next morning: I can breathe a little easier today, I really did work myself into a panic but once I started organizing my room and recycling a lot of papers and magazines I felt better. There’s still a lot on my mind, I don’t feel settled yet, but even if I make a tiny bit of progress it will make me fell more in control. Of everything. I will need to work things out, in my head and in my heart. I will do all that while I am cleaning, because cleaning will give me more control, I just feel that. I can’t be wrong. Can I?

The Reasons Why

I wake up each night every two hours.  I fall asleep quickly but two hours later these horrible mind games occur.  I wake up, not groggy, but alert as if an alarm inside me has gone off like a very loud siren.  Last night the ghost of anxiety past, present and future  filled my brain so much that I felt confused and uncertain. My mind was a mixture of headlines and dark thoughts twisted together like a  tree with very weak limbs. If there was a blast of wind I know the tree would ultimately go down, lying decrepit and lost by the side of the snow-covered road.

Why were there two teenagers admitted to the ICU with blood clots in an arm and in the brain. They are from the same town and know each other.  What are the chances of that happening, and why? The messages that terrorists are likely to attack again, soon frighten me.   I see the images of their faces in the newspapers and on television, over and over again.  I felt uneasy rereading the thirty-seven pages I read of The Bell Jar for my son.  The Methotrexate drug I take  haunts me and hates me, as I do it. The intense images of my daughter’s presentation on Haiti sticks in my mind, mud and blood, and half-dead children, with red gauze across their eyes, mothers reaching out for their dead children, crying. Grandmothers and fathers stretching their arms out to pray while tears are flowing down their cheeks. I also dream about evil rats, dorm rooms and multiplying green and black snakes. Nothing is too silly to taunt me.

Every two hours I rise from my bed to try to shake the demons away but they will not go, they stick to me like honey and  burrs and laugh when I try to shake them off. I am so tired that I try to stay awake during the day but sometimes I cannot.  I don’t  feel well physically, my stomach hurts, my body aches, my energy is at an all time low. I think about going back to the guru Dr. in the city and I feel like I am a failure.  My body is slow but my mind is racing, on over- drive. I cannot adjust the two to be synchronized. I wish I could. My legs are jumpy and my body cold, I trek to the bathroom back and forth as if I was pacing for a baby to be born, except there is no joy.

I have tried everything from deep breathing, telling myself an imaginary story, drugs, walking around, having a cookie,  but nothing seems to work.   I lie in bed awake and tense, I try to pull my fluffy pink blanket close by just to finger its texture but that doesn’t work either. I find myself turning over and over, asking myself questions that I don’t know the answer to. I am too tired to go downstairs and watch TV and our house is too small for me to wander around without waking someone up. For the first time in a long time, along with these physical maladies is fear; and I don’t know where that is coming from.

I am not even sure of what I am afraid of. If I knew, I could sort it out and try to solve it. Except I am afraid that this pattern will continue and my lack of sleep will only ravage me further.  I tried to sleep with the moon on my face last night but that gave me no sense of comfort either. I think I am going backwards in my physical health and that in itself is a nightmare.

I write now with a cup of coffee that I gulped down, fast enough that I don’t remember the flavor or the taste. I need to write but nothing comes to mind. Nothing but the puzzle pieces of my brain that are not fitting together. I ask for help in my silent plea to my deceased father  but nothing comes and then I am left with pure longing. I cringe because I am forgetting what my father’s voice used to sound like and that makes me terribly unhappy and lost.

I am feeling a bit disoriented. Where is my peace? Why can’t I find my gratitude guide? Why is everything scary and troubling and unlike the nightmares, I am wide awake enough to continue to feel these emotions. I am scared of nothing and everything, I feel sad and anxious and confused. I want to destroy these night-time monsters but they are indestructible. I am not Max of the Wild Things, I cannot make these evenings an adventure. they are in control of me and I surrender because I have no strength left to fight. I try to talk to myself but I cannot listen.