Vinn's Journal
1/1/2008 |
"Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know.
To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."
In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver
Here we are again on the precipice of a new year and there is much that continues to fill me and release me toward the grace of gratitude. The open sky, mobility to move about, a heated home, running water, no restrictions as to where I buy food, whom I associate with, seeming security from political terrorism, spare time to work on the "self"; these are a few of the scenes that flash by and remind me how easy I have it compared to many around the world. I see it as a good thing, a vital and generous thing, to jump to the outer regions of my life and count my blessings while also realizing that there is a private interior cave where emotional textures continue to display, because it's my turn.
Death has visited me this past year in a variety of forms.
It has been a year of loss and death and subsequent awakening to the abundance within this life that seeks to live through me.
Again, I wonder, what is happening here and where does simplicity lie among these intersecting boulevards of harried happenstance?
This past summer my sister, Antoinette died. She is my young sister. I recall the day she was brought home to our third floor walk-up railroad apartment. I can still see the expression on my mother's face and the look of pride on my father. Finally after three attempts, a girl. At last my mom would have her diminutive dream to dress up and pass on the secrets of tasty dishes from Naples.
From the beginning I forged a bond with Antoinette that had her pulling my hair between the heavy curtain that separated our beds. Quietly she was lifted into my bed where we would become timeless as I held her fingers and communicated through whispers and giggles. She was my project to assist in standing on her own two feet and ushering her along the narrow corridor that was our home as she practiced walking and stepping. I recall how momma would announce to anyone who would listen that it "was vinnie who taught antoinette to walk". Thanks for the accolade momma, but I believe it was an encoded skill she was bound to master.
It has been difficult coming to terms with her death. I wish it all would go away and we return to her being ill, and this time her treatment is the best available, with medicine not using her as a pin cushion and the drug companies not using her as an experiment. I was able to spend her last night alone with her. It was in a hospital room noted by the machines humming and whirring about her. The sweet young dark man who dutifully showed up every twenty minutes to move a tube or check a fluid bay, reassured me I could stay long beyond the posted times. I know that Antoinette also was not conscious of time and probably had a free falling sense of that elusive trait.
She was bald, bloated, and bruised. I managed to hold her fingers and whisper to her of my love and how I was missing her presence and that she could relax now, release now, and restore now to her origin. I don't know if she heard me. I trust some of the words got through. I was served by being there. It was a full circle experience, from crib to death bed, holding her fingers and whispering. A day does not go by where I am not thinking of and sensing, and remembering Antoinette. From where I write today I do not see an early exit from this grief. Instead, I chose to dive deep into the center and dance with it.
This death of my sister was accompanied, at about the same time, by the death of a deep, singular, and intimate love relationship, the intensity of which I was not prepared for.
This one-two punch has me reeling downward only to be saved by the ropes before taking a standing eight-count. I am literally "out" on my feet.
Massive self-inflicted body blows have gotten my attention and I stagger back to the safety of my corner where I am sponged down and administered smelling salts to regain consciousness.
This time in between rounds revitalizes me to look at the ways in which I have allowed myself to be pummeled by focusing on all the bobbing and weaving that went on in that last round. I realize I have failed to perform from my training to set-up my own effective two punch combination of integrity of action and immediacy of spoken truth.
I was mesmerized by the circling of hands, and feign follow through and took my eyes off where they needed to be; at the center core of the one before me, and more importantly, at myself. I absolutely own this shortcoming as a lack of clear focus and personal follow through. My corner men beseech me to stand my ground and close in on acts of empathy as well as words of endearment, in order to determine my position. I understand, for the moment, the footwork needed in keeping my heart open while also holding it close by in the corner of care and concern. I remain grateful for every round left standing and, also, for the ones that flatten me. A true contender, it is told in boxing lore, is the one who gets up off the canvas, gets back to the gym, and works diligently on ring generalship in order to re-enter the ring of engagement.
I am a contender.
As a result of this championship bout of beauty and bravery I realize that love is eternal, freedom is internal, and truth continues to knock me out.
trusting that we all experience a conscious, enlivened, and simple 2008................v