Listening to my body

This morning I feel odd, as if something is wrong. Yet, I know that actually, I am exhausted. I wonder how often we misinterpret the signals from our bodies – a need for more regular and healthy food or better, deeper rest? I tend to jump to a conclusion that involves someone else, an external search for blame when it is really the fact that I have been working 12 to 15 hour days, have been waking up way too early and pushing through each day without adequate nutrition!

There is nothing wrong with my emotional state, my relationships or anything else. I need more sleep. I need to relax. I need to take care of myself instead of hoping someone will do it for me. I live in this body and it is telling me something. Loudly.

I claim to want conscious relationship, yet I frequently am not listening to myself. There are so many techniques to alleviate the stress and exhaustion – a soak in the tub, a sauna and a relaxing shower, a walk in the Sanctuary listening to the birds and the wind. The birds are singing right now as they start their busy day, flying from tree to grass, seeking delicious tidbits to feed themselves and their little bird children.

I know what I know and yet I always forget. Rejuvenation is easy if we listen and respond to what the body has to say. Feed me. Let me rest. Take me somewhere pleasant and relaxing. Let me walk upon the earth and feel its cool power rising up through bare feet. Eyes, follow the flight of a butterfly. Ears, hear the rustling of leaves. Smell the loam, the faint perfume of flowers. Take a long, deep drink of cool water, laced with minerals from the well.

A massage would be particularly nice.

Waiting

CS Lewis said that death gives one's life a sense of constantly waiting, a "provisional" quality. This has now become so subtly part of daily reality that I barely notice it, but it is an ever-present feeling of the breath slightly held, anticipating. What is it I am waiting for?

Sometimes I feel like I am waiting for my life to start up again. I realize, of course, I have been living all along, over, under and through this provision, this endless transition. I have been studying, learning and now have completed a major accomplishment. If I had any sort of plan, life has moved along with it. The connections I am starting to make should guide me in my new endeavors, get my new career off the ground somehow.

Last month, my family gathered to celebrate another graduation, this one from my son's university. The accomplishments of my children give me much pleasure; to watch them grow, think, act and design the lives they want to live is amazing; I have to put a hand over my heart and one over my mouth as I stand in awe. And it is strange, bittersweet, to know that Alby is missing yet another milestone. At moments like these, he is so incredibly gone, and my sense of injustice rises. How could he "leave" us alone like this? Friends and relations tell my son that he would be so proud, and we know this to be true. It doesn't help.

At the requisite Tent Party, with a delicious buffet of all my son's favorite foods, his friends laughing, drinking and partying late into the night, a close friend asked me a question. "Who will make you a party when you graduate?" she asked. Hmm, I thought, probably no one. To test this theory, I mentioned my own graduation, and while people said, well done, good for you, I was right.

My daughter would probably tell me to celebrate myself. Yet, after 25 years of making a celebration out of everyone else's accomplishments, I still find myself waiting, anticipating, my breath slightly held. What is it I am waiting for?