Your Own Arms

This time of year might be the happiest – trees fruiting – unfurled ferns. June's first fireflies ride currents of whimsy in the almost dark. These precursors to Venus light. These beautifully unbearable lessons of life everlasting. And yet. Depression and this heavy-handed heat.

Morning's first tasks are given to water: dog, coffee, garden, flowers. A friend shares how she went camping and spent time naked in the sunlight. I think about the world I have created for myself whereby a desire abides and yet, seems problematic in the existing context of my life.

Now beyond mid-life, I am birthing myself. I am a child testing every borderland created for me. And by me. No longer is life a quest with heroes and villains; winners or losers; comfort and pain. It is a virgin palette simply waiting for my stroke.

Nothing is given. Nothing is safe.

Who walks with me still? That question no longer applies because the answer is but one brushstroke in the unending creation.

*

Hazy dawn breaks like a thick yolk, seeping into the remnants of night's coolness. A smattering of blue jay feathers beneath the reaching evergreen shrub leads to the discovery of the bird's body. It makes me wonder about the narratives we tell ourselves about the cruel nature of the world. I bury the bird near the garden because that is where I put all my dreams.

*

A few mornings ago, Kora had a seizure and in those moments, I could only swim upside down towards a moving surface. I swam past Beckett's seizure when he was 18 months old – the EMT's defibrillation paddles, the men performing CPR on his blue body, the words from the back of the ambulance: come back to us, buddy. I clawed and scraped for air as I moved past Lexi's anaphylaxis and my injection of epinephrine to save her life. I saw myself lying Kyle down on the gravel driveway after his glove caught in the wood splitter and pulled his hand across the blade. It's amazing how long you can hold your breath when life is in the balance of your own arms.

All of these mornings – all of the stories speaking of a life or death – all of these strokes restricted to their own color on the canvas – missing the masterpiece.

*

Water.

I swim, and I think it is because I am sensuous woman.

Below the surface, there is no where the water doesn't touch.

To be touched all at once.

That is watering at dawn.