Cafe Hitch-hike

2021-05-20

Compliments of the universe

This week, I gave myself 2 restful mornings where I start work in the late morning after resting in the morning, and then start and end work later. This a.m. is one, and the pup just curls up under the blanket with her nose sticking out, or rests against a pillow. I'm not fully awake and yet not fully asleep. The dreams and the rest I get are quite refreshing to me. I don't call it depression.

Part of it is anticipation of returning to the building for work in August. I think I made out exceptionally well with the pandemic (hah). It was just as all of this has been anxiety-inducing for me as it was for everyone else, it was less so because I had certain safety nets in place. I felt an easing off around the holidays. I went to help College John and his dad around the inauguration, and then I met Huck.

Like some relationships, I think Huck was a turning point. I felt like I was back to normal while also in a stupor despite not-normal happening all around us. He once said we were like a shelter in the storm, and I agreed. We both needed it, he definitely needed it more. It all brought me back to a state that I'm still trying to fully understand or describe. I guess the best way I could explain was a portal opened to us, and we stepped into it for a little while. We stepped out, and things within and outside were a bit different.

It's not just Huck, but work and quite a few other things. I'm not fully sure how the pandemic has changed my outlook. I will say, however... I found the relative stillness (not moving, not being in a building) be rather healing. It gave me a break from the usual stressors and mayhem, and there was space between me and all of that where I could view it differently. What do I want to change? What do I want to do differently? We've seen how fragile and short life really can be, so what do we want to do to live it well?

The rest is for recovery. We don't know what's going to happen as things start going back to normal. I'd like to simply make sense of these 15 months and especially the last 4. Since I have the opportunity to experience this stillness (and I have an idea of its expiration date), I am definitely going to take hold because God knows when we'll ever have a time like this again.

I know I can't rush it or force it. All I can do is make the space for it, and it will get in place with that and some gentle intention on my part. Does this make sense?

I sigh when I think of Huck. It sure seems consistent with the story of my life. I said a long time ago on these pages that I didn't feel like I belonged to anyone at all. I really am like a wind, there for a time and moment and then I'm elsewhere. I'm like a muse, dispatched to a time, place, and person, and when my work is done, I'm dispatched elsewhere. Someone once told me I shouldn't feel like I don't have control, and all I can say in my head was they didn't understand.

Surely my Kokopelli tattoo isn't a fluke. Is that who and what I really am (or his wife, some legends say he has one and she is Lady Kokopelli)? He's a traveler who goes from village to village with stories, news, songs, and goods that weren't available. Some legends say he is a musician, fertility deity, lover, teacher, or a trickster not to con, but to coax you into going someplace you never considered but your soul wanted to. I am definitely all the above, though my music skills got terribly rusty. I've definitely dragged the asses of people into different directions through all the above, and no, I really didn't intend to.

Well, I sure hope whatever magic I sprinkled on Huck takes him somewhere better than where he seemed to be heading. Sometimes the men I dated found the loves of their lives after me or really did go on to good things, so in advance, I shrug and say, 'compliments of the universe.'

I can't say I've been left totally high and dry or that I'm some all-giving avatar. Life treated me with some richness (materially and otherwise) after a certain point (and tons of effort). I just get to share mine differently, I suppose.

Well, well, so I guess this means I, too, have some new roads to traverse once we wake from our plague-induced slumber. More stories to collect and share. More dances to dance, songs to sing, and love to make, all not bad things. In the meantime, I'll rest, try to make sense of it, and we will eventually return to some type of normal.

downwind | upstream