Tag Archives: Choices

Space to Breathe in 2025

Lately the space in which I live
feels constricted in ways
I've not felt before

It's not the physical space around me
but my body space,
if that makes any sense at all

I mean the wandering of my mind
and the sensations in my gut
and the wavering as I walk so that
I don't feel grounded on the earth

This happens when one is confronted
with a groundswell of events
that are unfamiliar, unnerving and unfathomable

And here we are, faced with what was
not unexpected yet still overwhelming,
so much so that every response feels
inadequate to the task at hand

My thought was if I write it all down,
putting words to my experience and
the impact on my whole being,

Then I would have a better chance of
finding a way through,
past the disbelief and fear,
both of which provide neither comfort nor direction.

How's it sounding so far?
Any ideas?

In the meantime I'm going to
walk on the beach,
breathe the salt air,
clear my head and
be ready for what comes next.

What are you going to do?

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Filed under Prose and Poetry

Choosing

I lie here in bed reading, being inspired once again by the voice of Alice Walker.   I raise my left arm up, letting my hand descend to rest on my head.

A gesture of nonchalance you might think.

Apparently not,  as there in front of me hangs this wrinkled skin that is my forearm.   It didn’t used to be.

I put the book down and draw my fingers over the creases in my skin.  It feels so soft – not seductively soft – but soft like a form that had lost it’s inner structure.

I smile to myself and consider the choice to be made here.  I can focus on the loss of youth or the passing of middle age, or I can rejoice and feel gratitude for living today.

When I recall a time that I might have died some years ago, that choice is easy.

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Filed under Prose and Poetry