Solar Rehab

Nocturnal Hours

The doc says I'd be silly to take the chance of doing more damage to my knee by working this week.  You don't have a desk job, honey, she tells me.  Yeah, I know.  I feel the hot needles and shooting flames in my hip when I sit a certain way or stand too quickly.

But I have to do something. I am not the take it easy type. Never have been. If my body isn't busy, my mind is.  I have been to Mexico and back in the last week without ever leaving the house. I've had dreamless nights (thanks to Flexeril and lavender massage oil). There have also been those dreaded nocturnal hours where sleep is running circles around my bed and dodging the sheets.

Those nights are few and far between, thank Morpheus...

And then there are nights like last night, when the remains of the day are wafting between the sheets and unconsciousness. Behind my closed eyes I see his face. That familiar smile. Those incredible seawater eyes...

And sleep goes running circles around the bed again...

Wide Open

It's funny how a little time off can put your world in perspective for you.  For the past several years my own world has been a feast dined upon by tragedy, heartache, the whims of fate, single motherhood, and the journey into professional nursing.  The time off that I've savored since May 11 has let me know, without a hint of doubt, that I've been spit back out.  Whole and intact.  And better than ever, thank you.

Thank the powers that be for the overwhelming sense of adventure that I was surely born with.  Although I cannot divulge the details today about my next adventure (simply because I want to bask in the sensual arms of secrecy a bit longer), I can say this...

I am alive again.  I am no longer just getting by.  No longer waiting for that next magic, that next adventure.  There's a difference, you know, between living and just surviving.  No, my world isn't perfect.  And it probably never will be. 

And that's the odd beauty of it all.

There's no adventure in an ordinary life, is there?  I'll take my hard lessons and run with them, even as fate and tragedy pick the crumbs of the feast from their teeth.  You may even see me looking back to whisper a thanks, to give a wink and a pirate's grin, my eyes and heart wide open...

Home

I am no stranger to confusion... Still, its presence never becomes comfortable.  The degree is complete.  The long anticipated trip is over.  And here it is, my body in the house that I've lived in for nearly 10 years, feeling like a visitor in someone else's skin. 

What do I do now?  Where do I go?

Pennsylvania is not my home.  I followed my husband here 11 years ago when he transferred jobs.  He has been gone now for almost five years.  I have no concrete or desirable reason to remain here.  Every day of my life I wonder why I have stayed as long as I have.

I am tired.  I am in a never-ending dance with that familiar confusion.  I feel as if I'm half alive. 

And what is the solution?  Honestly, I don't know.  Yet.  I haven't given up hope.  Not completely, anyway.  I have spent the last six years of my life in a virtual whirlwind.  It began with Mark's illness and ended a few days ago when I returned from the Caribbean.  I walked through my front door, and I literally felt as if I suddenly just stopped.  The whirlwind was gone.  Hello, confusion.

And now that I am standing still, I realize what the last few years have done to me.  I have changed so completely.  Perhaps I really am a visitor in someone else's skin... 

I am too used to sleeping alone.  I buy what I want to when I want to.  I go wherever I want to go without anyone's permission.  I drink too much when I feel like it... just because I can.  I have thicker skin.  My heart is somewhat hardened, I'm afraid.  Not that that matters; I can't read men anymore, either... It's difficult for me to discern what people are thinking and feeling... because I simply don't care as much as I once did.

I'm sorry for that. 

Perhaps now that the whirlwind has ceased, I can find life again.  But I know I won't find it here.  I want to go home.  Sadly, I'm not sure where home is... 

I'm pretty sure that's the utmost epitome of the word lost, isn't it?  I don't know where I belong.  Not exactly, at least. 

So, I suppose I'd better come up with a plan.  It would behoove me (as Mark used to say) to do some serious thinking.  To figure out what I want and where I want it.  The world is just as much mine as it is anyone else's.  Thinking in those terms, I suppose I'm not truly lost, after all.

I long for Summer to bring answers.  Clear ones.  Answers that I can feel through this thick skin of mine.  Answers that will lead me home...

Rural Legends

My hometown of Richlands, Virginia is just a speck of rural geography on a map.  It's a rather secluded little place.  It's an hour's drive to an interstate highway, and even further to an airport.  There are people there that I know personally who have never seen an ocean, met a black person, or explored any part of the country (much less the world) beyond rural Appalachia.  As a teenager, I could hardly wait to leave Richlands in the dust to find bigger and better places. 

I left my hometown before I was 19 years old.  I've explored a bit of the world thus far, just as I'd hoped to.  I've flown over oceans and met people from all over the world.  Although there are certainly places bigger than Richlands, I've come to understand that better is a thoroughly personal opinion.  I now actually miss being surrounded by seemingly endless mountains.  I miss hearing the southern-spoken English from the mouths of my fellow "folk."  Although I left that speck of rural geography over 15 years ago, I still consider it home. 

Many talented and mysterious people hail from rural Appalachia.  The folklore is quite amazing, as well.  The tales from the mountains are some of the best storytelling fodder I've ever heard.  Simple, yet captivating. 

Someone sent me a link to the following video.  I recognize every landscape and building in it.  No surprise, really...