What are the words?
Things continue to unravel.
Each day brings a new layer of complexities.
I have been practicing leaning toward simple,
Keeping it as simple as I can.
I have not been terribly successful.
As things seem to constrict around me,
I speed up.
I go faster.
Speeding up seems to give me the
Illusion of control.
Today I got stopped by a West Stockbridge policeman.
It appears I was driving 55-mph in a 25-mph zone.
As soon as he pulled me over, I started to cry.
I’m not a crier, particularly.
By the time he got to my car, I was sobbing.
Authentically sobbing,
Without any attempt
To dodge my civic responsibility.
He stopped next to my window.
I blurted out some of the details of my moment:
“Wife with cancer—lost my job…”
He stood there, somewhat puzzled, quiet.
He took my license and registration and walked back to his car.
I sobbed some more,
Feeling good and sorry
For myself.
When he returned, he handed me my license
And
Gave me a “verbal warning,”
Which beat the $250
Potential fine.
And then he offered me the kindest,
The most generous talk
About self-care,
Telling me that if I didn’t
Slow down and take care of myself,
I couldn’t be there for my spouse.
Like, what I might tell you guys.
He was so generous
And so right-on
In his kind attentiveness,
His advice was so
Precisely
What I needed,
Hand-picked by the universe,
Was
This
Cop
For
My healing.
It was
A
God-Thing.
We blessed each other.
I drove away,
Slowly,
In tears.
Very slowly,
I drove
Very slowly,
With
Tears.
~Aruni Futuronsky
when I shed the need to linger in “what now”- I just linger in what is…
inquiry for today~ oh to love and to know love in all the small ways…..
I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief-
so this massive darkness makes me small.
You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:
then your great transforming will happen to me,
and my great grief cry will happen to you.
~Rilke
Make Believe Boutique 