beauty.

i am very, very tired.
little t came over to help me with getting my mom's bills figured out, which i had been hard-core avoiding. i really needed someone else here with me doing it, so it didn't seem so hard. and, really, it wasn't that bad. she's a little overdue, and her credit cards are no joke, but nothing to freak over.
t brought kombucha and chips and a nectarine, and just hung out with me while i confronted my office work. after that, she went into my room with me while i tidied up, and we talked a lot about my mom.
i am feeling like i am moving into a new phase with my mom's death.
i felt like i really kicked the first phase's ass. i was totally present in the hospital, and even through radiation.
but i feel like i didn't do that great a job with the second phase. (i know, i hear everyone wanting to scold me to be kind to myself, patient with myself, and i am. i know i did the best i could. but that doesn't mean that i did the job i would have liked to do.) it was too confusing, too diffuse, and i spent a lot of time being sad/mad at my mom for not being who i wanted her to be, and i am ashamed of that. i am ashamed of myself for trying to manhandle her into making me happy, or trying to shove a magic sentence down her throat that would unlock her closed box of emotion for the emotional catharsis i was really wanting from her. i understand why i did it, and i understand that i couldn't have done it any other way, but i am not proud of the job i did, and i wish i had been coming from my heart more.
i feel like i am back in my heart again, finally. i am looking forward to the tenderness and sweetness of this phase, and holding mom's hand while we snuggle like seals in bed. i am looking forward to having my community around me again, and having people help me. i think i was too afraid to ask for help during phase two, and that was a mistake. i wasn't afraid to ask for help during phase three, and i am done letting my fear of this sadness keep me from really being with mom. i have been so desperate to get away from the discomfort of mom in her deteriorating state, so afraid of the sadness and pain it brings up, that i have been fleeing the house the second i could. it made me feel fucking terrible, to be avoiding being close to my mom, the most important person in my life, and my biggest influence. i felt like such a coward.
that time is done now. i remembered with pema said about fear. i am leaning into it again. i am afraid of the fear and afraid of the pain - afraid it will unmake me somehow, and it's okay that i am afraid, but i'm not going to let it make my decisions for me.
while this is a terrible time, so painful, so scary, absolutely excruciating, there is something so soft about it, too. it's like the rawness is so raw that there is nothing i can do with my brain to make it feel healed. i just have to be with the open, yawning chasm of sadness. this is my chance to take care of my mom, the way she spent her life taking care of me. my mom feels like being my mom was the most important, best thing she's ever done, and i hope that i am brave enough, soft enough, open enough to do the same for her.

lu sent this poem to me.

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

it's funny/serendipitous that lu sent that to me, because janie sent me a poem earlier, too.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


~ Rumi ~

okay?
so, i'm back.
this is me, in my heart, with my arms open to the fear and the avoidance and the sadness and the not-enough feelings and the it's-too-late and every painful thing that is surrounding my mom's slow, steady death. this is me inviting it all in, like honored guests. this is me greeting them at the door with curiosity.