renewal

Post #90: Skimming the Cream from the Day

Cindy Frank musings, personal philosophy, reinvention, renewal, Uncategorized ,

IMG_0732Here I am. The ever tenacious scriblerian, attempting once again “to skim the cream from the day.*” It’s a greedy thing to do. But I don’t care. My thoughts have been so jumbled lately, exploding every which way like one of those British Christmas crackers.

It’s time to unjumble them. Snuggle down. Let’s begin.

Unmasked, I stretch yearningly forward into a quiet that soothes me with the thick secure warmth of a down comforter on a frigid night. My fists unclench, my toes uncurl, my chest untightens. I’m breathing? Of course I am. But now each new breath feels like some luxuriant renewing elixir flowing through me. At last.

Had my breathing really been so shallow before? Had I really been so knotted and snarled?

Out in the world, attempting as always to conquer with a smile, to marshal support with a few agonizingly well chosen words, to acquiesce, to admire, to accede. Exhausted, my eyes squint with the effort, my head and my back tense with the oh so necessary shoring up of the facade.

The cream of the day is a balm and a salve, a hidden but oh so necessary respite. For a few private, precious moments I am the person on the other side of the photographs.

But time is almost up. Once again, stack the bricks to the barriers. Snap shut the shutters to the eyes. Soon out the front door and back to the front lines.

The soft sweet nougat center armored in a delicate chocolate shell, I am not who everyone thinks I am. Oh please. But then who of us really is?

*Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Post #60: Darwin on the Porch

Cindy Frank middle-age, musings, nature, personal philosophy, reinvention , ,

img_1469I pry my eyes wide open. For safety’s sake  I’m sleeping in my glasses. I always sleep in my glasses.  I need to see. I desperately need to see.  But it’s so dark I might as well have kept my eyes closed.

It’s so dark! It’s so, so dark!

I catch my  breath. Then the little thoughts  begin to pelter me like hailstones, icy little balls rat-a-tatting  at me.

I should have called him.

I started to read but I stopped.

Why didn’t I do the dishes last night?

That picture has been crooked on the wall for a week.

The crags of unfolded laundry are piled higher and higher. Unputaway

The cobwebs reach delicately, achingly from corner to lamp and then arch back again.

“I want this!  I need this!  You’re late!!”

I’m already afraid for the mistakes of the day I’m yet to make.

I struggle from the swirled tidepool of my bedsheets.

Down the stairs, into my coat, out the door,  onto the porch.  Once there I stop. For a moment or two I can’t even breathe. But I can hear it.

It’s so long since I’ve really heard silence.

The air is moist, comfortingly heavy and sweetly enveloping.  Each breath feels as if I’m swallowing rich mouthfuls of a malted. I breathe slowly — not to be too greedy.

I know this place so well.  The ragged hedge, the tufted and tousled  grass, the barebranched trees jubilantly stretching their limbs, grateful to  at last shaken free the leaves that form a crunchy carpet below.

It’s all solid, all respectful, all tolerant. How can a place feel patient?

But here for a few moments, nothing is asked of me. I am not judged. I am quietly welcome.

That’s all there is. But then, that’s all I wanted.

***

In December of 1831 Charles Darwin boarded The Beagle to begin a five year voyage of discovery that would take him from the Canary Islands to the Galapagos to New Zealand.  Was he equal parts exhilarated and exhausted,  roiled by the ocean, burned by the equatorial sun, embraced by the arms of the sky?  The only naturalist on board FitzRoy’s vessel, he was separate from the seamen, always alone, straining to hear the sounds of quiet.  Away from the onslaught of the world, through jungles and trauma and terrors,  he still possessed one of the greatest luxuries: he had time to think.

After returning home in 1836  Darwin spent rest of his life was spent sorting his thoughts. His period of separateness and quiet was the seedbed of his greatness, of all that came afterwards.

I have not traversed oceans, nor clambered up mountains, nor soared through the skies. So many times , like today,  I cannot make myself step further than my front porch. But for me, at least this time, it’s far enough.

A few moments of quiet and my mind leaps forward too!

Post #56: The Mote Caught in an Updraft

Cindy Frank middle-age, musings, personal philosophy, self-worth , ,

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Head down, hands jammed in pockets, I know just where I am going.

I move into the diner with the singleminded determination of a swimmer chopping through the channel. The dissonant clash of voices  both happy and  harsh, crash against me like wave after wave of  ocean spray.  It is hard, hard, harder  to breathe.  I can’t breathe. I bob and dip and thrash until finally my body sighs safe into a booth. At last. By myself. I am here. 

A Spanish Omelette?  Oatmeal and Banana? Lentil Soup?  Turkey on Rye?  Lime Jello? What do I want? How do they taste? Does it matter?

When the waitress comes she gently arches her eyebrows. In return I slightly nod my head.  In a moment,  two poached eggs in a cup, toasted bagel dry, and  fruit cup are silently placed before me. She knows.

The hot coffee flows black and strong  into my cup, down my throat, seeping throughout my veins, suffusing my whole self. Bold and bracing even if I am not.

The sounds of voices rumble around me like missiles missing the mark.

I am surrounded.  How am I still safe?

I sit alone.  I am small. Insignificant. Ridiculous even.  I know. Squinty-eyed. Rumpled clothes askew. Hair flying every which way.  I know.

Will they laugh? Will they point? Will I notice? Will I care?

And yet.  Phalanxed behind my massive plastic coated menu, burrowed into the foxhole of my booth,  I remember:

  • my friend who snips from  her lilac bush each May to bring me an intoxicating, paper towel-wrapped bundle of spring
  • The bags of salted licorice my husband walks twenty blocks out of his way for
  • Life Goes to the Movies,  a yearned for surprise presented to me by my mother at The Little Gym
  • The Pink Ring of Power, better known as the Star Sapphire Power Ring from the Green Hornet, created out of star sapphires to fight against fear and hate. A gift from three intrepid crime fighters.
  • so much more

And then like one waking from slowly from slumber, my aching soul begins to sing and soar once again, like a mote caught in an updraft.

Two poached eggs, toasted bagel dry,  a cup of fruit. The platters are clean. I can move again.  It is time to leave.

When I rise this time I do not bob and I do not weave. I walk. Once again I am whole. Brave again and buoyed,  I float. And then, once again, I fly.