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Pema Chodron has said (and I paraphrase) that things don't get solved. They come together and they fall apart, and then again, and then again. The healing comes from being ready for all of this to happen.
Well, thank you, Pema. You've pretty good at coming up with the right words when they're needed. So instead of thinking that I am lost because my thread broke, I can reframe it this way: things fall apart, after which according to you they will come together again. And then the whole thing all over again and the thread is still there. Unbroken. Just like the circle.
As I lay awake recently in mid-night, I hoped to find a thread of thought to write about the next day. But as I investigated I found that each thought was only one sentence deep. Maybe two.
Nothing that passed through my head from 3:40 to 6 a.m. was worth a second look. Well, wrong phrase. Many of them did want a second look. They'd come charging back into my consciousness but with the same lack of depth they had shown the first time.
I walked longer than usual yesterday, from my hairdresser's new and very far away salon to my son's house where I could see two of the grandchildren. Google Maps showed me the route (I printed it out) and told me it would take 45 minutes. Well, Google hasn't walked a mile in my shoes. Boots.
In boots, my normal healthy stride is more like a trudge. The map was probably fine but I couldn't read it without my glasses, which were buried in my purse, so I missed a turn-off and traveled diagonally a lot farther south than I should have. Additional trudge, trudge.
It was a good walk. Not too cold. No ice. But the unspoken comment my mind kept throwing at me was "Oof!"
Oof? What happened to "whee!"? Or if not that, then "Ohm"? Or even Ole? What happened to the possibility of joy (see "whee!" above)? Or of being conscious (see "Ohm"). But no, the only sound in my head was Oof!
I thought I had exorcized Eeyore for good. I thought that recognizing his longstanding role in my life had enabled me to move beyond Eeyore and into—if not Tigger than at least Owl. Again Pema has nailed it. Eeyore disappears, gone for a while, when things came together, and then when they fall apart again, here's Eeyore, alas-ing his way through my life.
Maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe Eeyore will recede and I will move from "oof!" to "whee!"
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