Author: pegnear

 

I live in a quiet area of the city…but at 3am I can’t believe how noisy it is…the fridge, with water pumping somewhere within it’s depths as ice cubes drop making room for the water to freeze and make more. The furnace comes on once in awhile…in between  the auger turning and grinding, as the pellets clink into the burn pot of the pellet stove….hmmmm. Is that alliteration? I am too tired to know.

No TV, radio or stereo are on…the things that purposely make noise…no lights are on, save for that from my computer screen as I type…wishing I could sleep.

Things go through my head…I worry about things…pointless things…the worry is pointless….court cases, houses selling, moving and downsizing…wanting somewhere warmer, but not sure where…leaving/staying…wolves in the city…lost dogs in these frigid temps…kids that live near yet I  seldom see…kids that live far away that I seldom see….neutoric dog, overworked husband, retirement….oh lord…mother, sisters, friends….all growing older, having more health issues. Silly things I see on line, improbable, impossible, iconic, idiotic things. Things this government is doing to systematically destroy our country…nothing good, nothing positive there…makes me angry…no makes me furious….

List of stuff to sell, to keep, to move, to store….lists of things to do, to build, to fix, to buy, lists of passwords, lists of lists.

Wondering if I should try and sleep again…decide no. Don’t want to wake my sweetheart who has an early start tomorrow…this…morning.

Look out the windows but no aurora, too cloudy. Wondering why I sleep so well at the cabin but not here. Perhaps because it’s where I hang my heart, although anywhere my love is is ‘home’.

Thinking of choices…decisions in the making….make sure you get it right this time.

Smiling as I think of friends recently reconnected. Feeling joy thinking of friendships nearly as long as my life. Sadness of friendships ended, but understanding it needed to happen.

Going over the list of blessings in my life and knowing first hand the changes gratitude can make.

Mulling over things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things and prioritizing those that do.

Solving the problems of the world, yet unable to solve 34 Across.

Wondering why the sandman no longer enjoys my company. Wondering why the light from the waxing moon likes it so much.

I’ll finish this and then go to bed…to sleep, perchance to dream. Hopefully not to die. I enjoy the sunrises too much for that. Goodnight.

“There are places I remember…..all my life

Though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain”

Those simple words written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon have always stirred something deep in my soul.

Do you ever miss a place you’ve never been?

There are many places in this world that I have never been, but there are two places I have never been that my heart longs for….when I go to that place of melancholy memory. It is a feeling that is so palatable as to be a physical longing.

My soul weeps with the emotion of a long awaited homecoming…just there, beyond the horizon…

Sometimes it will be reading about a far off place that brings the longing, but often it will come from dreams. Over the years there have been times where I feel so certain that I have been somewhere else as I sleep that it is startling, but never frightening. Images so deeply etched in my subconscious that they become conscious and I have found it difficult to find clarity for several moments after waking.

Mostly it  is the music …. the rythmn of an African drum matches the beat of my heart…I feel joy to the roots of my being. The drum calls to me and something almost primal stirs …nothing I can explain.

The emptiness and ache is the worst when I see pictures of, or hear music from, Scotland….odd given my Irish heritage….but I have never been drawn to Ireland like I have Scotland. I feel such an affinity, a yearning that calls me ‘home’….home to a place I have never been.

It’s a nostalgia for a time and place that I’ve never experienced. It’s not Deja-vu; it’s something more than that. A yearning that is unexplainable….defies words, but not emotion.

I am pensive, despondent. I feel such profound sorrow at never being able to attain the joy I know I once had in these places of my non existent memory. Perhaps one day I will travel to these, the places of my heart. Perhaps I will not. For I have been there. Once. Long, long ago.

I turned 50 on a fall day in 2002

I  have always been excited, happy and grateful to celebrate each birthday. It was just one more piece of evidence that I was a survivor, and the alternative to getting older held no appeal for me.

Reaching this milestone was different. I had lived a half century!  Wow!!!

Why, then, did I feel such a sense of trepidation? Underneath my enthusiasm I could feel it…a hesitation almost….a tightness entered my chest. I couldn’t understand it.

In a year that should have brought great happiness, I lost my joy. I couldn’t understand it. Our businesses were doing well, our family was doing well, we had just bought a small lakefront cabin where we could escape the demands of being business owners and operators. Life was good. What was wrong with me?

At first I chalked it up to menopause…I’d been struggling for a few years with mood swings, hot flashes, night sweats …  all the worst symptoms that the unfortunate women of the world deal with….I’d bought the full meal deal from that menu selection.

But it was more than that. I couldn’t put my finger on it. The answer was there, just at the edge of my consciousness…I could feel it, sense it, swirling, ducking, darting…taunting me.

That year, generally, was one of the worst of my life. It was like I was holding my breath waiting for something horrific to happen. My sense of unease grew worse as the year progressed. I didn’t want to travel, I was on edge all the time.

Although my 50th birthday was significant, it  was my 51st that I remember most.

I am blessed to share my birthday date with our first grandchild, our granddaughter who, that year, turned 8. As was our tradition, we celebrated together, having a wonderful dinner at our house, opened our gifts and blew the candles out on our pumpkin pie and cake.

Although nothing particularly memorable happened that day, I remember feeling like as though I was breathing again…and then it hit me.

I had spent a year holding my breath, figuratively…and in some sense literally. That day, the day I reached 51 years of age, I finally exhaled.

Oh my God! I knew the answer! I had known it all along, I was just too frightened to give voice to it…if you think it, that’s one thing. If you speak it, you risk willing it into existence.

I had been terrified all year. I have been told my whole life how I look like my Dad, how I think like my Dad, how I act like my Dad.

My father died four days after my 23rd birthday. He had turned 50 just three and a half months earlier. Was I so like him, that I too would be dead at 50??

I remember that night…the night of my 51st birthday. After everyone had left or gone to bed, I sat quietly on the deck in the cool autumn air and I breathed again.  Once again a piece of evidence that I was a survivor. I was my own person. I wasn’t totally like my Dad. I was alive. And I gave thanks.