We're in our separate rooms. I'm lying on the bed, puny and pathetic, my cells distracted by some invader that's made me lurch when I get out of it. She's in her room, pacing in circles, bending gracefully over to pick up the toys she loves to mouth. Music wafts out and down the short hallway, sometimes eclipsed by her moans. She might be agitated. She might be vocalizing. I don't know. I tell myself that she's happy or at least content even as she's stimming away. I push away the thought that if I opened the door, she'd walk out and away. We're in our separate rooms, like tigers in cages. Her cage is purple and cream, lined with mermaids and music, swaying palms through glass, a padded door. Mine is my thoughts, the restless guilt, the never enough, the loneliness, the overwhelming fatigue, the whimper. I've told you about tigers before, way before there were tiger moms, way before when there was only Blake and what was burning bright.
Here's that post from 2009.
I'm not Chinese. I've been leached, drained of my tiger-ness, like that old story about the little boy in the jungle, the tigers who spun so fast around the tree that they melted into butter that he put on his pancakes and devoured.
Your strength will return. No one, no human anywhere, can be strong all the time and we all live in cages of one sort or another.
ReplyDeleteMay we make them beautiful and with windows to see out of, to let the light in to illuminate our pacing.
I read that other post too. These posts together are so powerful but aching too, that it is the way it is, that you have to grow so strong and burning fierce in the name of love, because there was no other choice. Rest, dear friend. Even tigers need to rest sometimes. Release the guilt, the yearning, the wishing. Just for today and maybe tomorrow too, just be. You are so loved.
ReplyDeleteI read the two together. The way you write, the way you make connections...every blog post is like a gift. It's true what Ms. Moon and 37paddington are saying. Tigers, like all cats, are masters (mistresses?) of heavy-duty resting. So, may you rest heartily and regenerate. I've had a small taste of the tiger-being. Raising 8 kids together puts you into a hyper-vigilant state. Chronic illness in the family, too, will move a mother in that direct, just a little. It's not the enduring state that you move within but I kind of know what you're saying. I am not a tiger, not really. I don't know what I am. I'm not prey, but I'm something else. Now you've got me wondering...
ReplyDeleteWishing you strength. Sending you love.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you're feeling poorly. It really should be against the rules that we should ever be down for the count! I hope rest restores you.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you have drought fever. I saw an article this morning about how some Angelenos are dying their lawns green to hide the dead grass. I imagine THAT would induce sickness, but I know you're not going that route. Strange weather often induces strangeness in the body -- in this case both yours and Sophie's. Don't you think?
ReplyDeleteSending hugs.
ReplyDeleteYou make my heart ache Elizabeth. I don't know how else to describe it. I'm so sorry for the loneliness. That's what strikes me most. I can say you're not alone but I know that doesn't do it---- not at at all.
ReplyDeleteI love the tiger analogy, if only because it acknowledges the fierceness of you both, the sense of purposeful waiting, constant motion, and beauty. I could feel the tension in the house with this piece and can only say that I hope it releases soon and you are both able to rest peacefully.
ReplyDeleteHow do you manage to be so delicious, and so profound? I'm sorry for your loneliness, the guilt. I've been reading about alchemy. I think whatever you've become, it's gold.
ReplyDeletean idea - since S enjoys being read to...audio books during independent time? i know that guilt of needing
ReplyDeletetime away from being source of constan
t teaching - and audiobooks was the salvation for us.
xoj
Love the way you write...
ReplyDelete