Front yard flower

I am emerging from stuck
between the cracks of groundlessness
upon which I walk. Totally boxed in
my head could not swivel
not look to the right or left.
Legs ached body hurt stuck
totally there. Always, ALWAYS
when this happens I know that it
too, like joy, is impermanent.
I seek refuge in the same
substance that traps me--
all is temporary.

So, I would assume that this // and here the record stops. There has been a shift in the ground, in the thoughts that entrap mind. The air clears. My head can look up, now--can see crystal blue, can hear morning sounds of dove, finch and cardinal. Once free from stuck there is only the push forward. And just look what I found in my own front garden!

Solstice Socks

Ten socks. Ten solstice socks and all are hung above the fireplace in our December home. Five pairs ready for family gals. What a wonderful project this knitting socks throughout the months and seasons of 2012. Learning to knit in the round with four bamboo needles was a challenge so wonderfully accomplished because I didn't think I could do it. But I needed to do it. I needed this steep learning curve to turn my mind around and into the math and logic of stitching stitches that held together in a mutual sockness. When I knit close, elbows in, fingers touching, eyes focused on the stitch moving from one needle to another there is no room for anything else in my thinking brain. If I stray in thought a stitch is dropped, a row falls, the pattern dips. The recovery is an arduous task but recovery does happen. Knitting is sometimes dedicated to a process of recovery. It is a "work through" like baking or gardening or painting. Low these many months I have worked through a dilemma and now I can celebrate gifting. I am grateful to have people I love to give these pairs of socks to. Warm feet make for warm hearts--truly.

Depression is a frozen lake

Depression is a frozen lake
   where feelings forget soft and warm
   and skip upon the ice like pebbles tossed
   in soundless sadness of joy lost.
Coming out of depression
   thoughts of clarity missed before
   float to top beneath icy mirror
   reflecting wisdom of essential core.
Swimming up toward coming out
   I hold my breath in anticipation
   that the edge of light will lead to
   full warmth far from endless cold.
Underneath ice shows sunlit streaks
   of yellow, gray, a bit of orange and
   splotches of lilac and blue as white
   light lies within all colors new.
Return to joy as frozen fissures let go
   and someone dances up the wall
   having traded stuck for the
   roving rhythm of rhyme. 

http://www.wordlayers.com/Drepression.htm 

I wrote all the words

In the beginning of any project or endeavor--like a new year--there are strings of wisdom and unresolved questions that tag along. I have given little thought to where I go from here--after the accident. Tomorrow, I am to begin my old normal life and I do not know how that will look. Rather than "normal" . . . it is not. A new normal will come into the days that follow. I will form new. My work will form new. What I did and what I do will form new. Change is here and I cannot see what that means. It is after the accident. Something has ended but what starts now? What takes the place of recovery? When at an impasse, it helps to look through old journals because lessons learned seem to lead to. . . lessons learned. This morning I found words about change and recovery--over and over again. The New Year comes no matter when the new year begins. The following was written several years ago.

I wrote all the words I needed to say (the angry, nasty, cry-baby whines,  prayers, pleadings, incantations) until I was speechless — no more words. And it was exactly here that I discovered silence inside-out.  And it was exactly here that I was free and ready   to   recognize the spiritual at the core of this experience.

I remember when I was insane. The panic had become unbearable and there was no good way out. It was here that my doctor piercingly looked me in the eye and said, "This will pass. You will be okay. I promise you this will pass." To which I almost screamed, "Do you know what I feel--this anxiety is caught in my head? There is no place for it to go, no relief, no way out. I cannot live this way. Do you know that?" To which he immediately answered, "Yes. I do know." His emphatic response was stunning and quieted my rantings. This and well prescribed medication and therapy got me through the after shock of trauma.

Eventually, all of my medical and hospital bills will be paid. However, the debt I owe this good doctor can never be repaid except with huge mountain sized gratitude--and then some.

The night of remembered living happened in its own time. Since the accident, we have been sleeping in the downstairs guest room. I've had much fear about going up and down the stairs. Ten weeks ago I fell down those stairs and into a kind of hell. Last night I walked up to our bedroom and slept well until morning. The walk downstairs was a bit uneasy but the sunlight filtering down with me showered light rather than dark. The boundary between sick and well happened without question or prodding. Chuck simply asked, "Do you want to sleep upstairs tonight?" I said, "Yes." I left the cocoon of my healing because I am now of good health. 

GarageArt

GARAGE ART: Since the accident, a varied form of art has shadowed what I have done before. I don't quite know what to do with this, but I think I'll play with it for awhile. I think art and words change anyway, even without accidents or the coming of old age.

ART THERAPY: I am enormously grateful for the coming back of something new. Since the accident, I've had to teach myself how to use the same web design tools one day at a time over and over again. I've been dragging around pieces of color not knowing where the color came from or where the pieces will go. And it looks happy. . .not at all as dark as I feel about relearning the beginnings.

First Color

Like a stream I fell into a low place

FIRST COLOR I fell down a flight of stairs and knocked myself pretty crazy. I lost both words and art. This is the first of the art combined with a few words that seem to go with the chapter of the Tao I am studying while I wait for what I call sanity to return.

When a country obtains great
power,it becomes like the sea:

all streams run downward onto it.
http://taoway.blogspot.com

Since the accident I have had no zip for writing or art. I've been busy with the after effects of trauma. Family love and care, doctors and therapists have brought me to a place of return and recognition. I saw an add for Color Reform ABC carpets in the NYT's Magazine. It was art I wanted to look at and study simply because of the pleasure it gave me. I cut the page out and placed it by my favorite coffee mug and pot of pens. Today, I'm going up the stairs I fell down. My studio is there waiting to be cleaned and arranged and opened for whatever comes next. Creativity has shown itself as a strength that cannot be shook, rattled or rolled out of my body, mind or spirit. Good day, today.