Inside my healing house, a woman is resting. Her limbs float - heavy and light. Strong and then weak. Her toes are right where they’ve always been. Her fingers stiff one moment, loose the next.
The world is a poym today. I am working on reconnecting with the meticulous attention that it takes to capture what is really going on.
Hello, Dolphins. Today is a poem day.
The construction at the landlord's house sounds like children playing with blocks. The workers drop a beam. Someone shouts.
They hammer and drill. They saw.
Inside my head, cicadas buzz.
It's not tinnitus. It’s not in my ears.
Outside my head,
a car bursts across the gravel. A jet roars overhead.
Energy is moving - cells conversing.
I try to listen in
but this is a language that's new to me.
Weary. I turn it down.
This morning, stepping out the back door, I caught the scent of flowers. Jasmine and baby powder, a trace of chamomile and a quiet note of . . . plum? I found it in the white cluster cap of a Queen Anne's Lace. Surprised, I didn’t know your smell! I told the flower.
I am talking to flowers,
as I always have.
Now, I can sense them listening.
Sometimes, I think that I could have been a 'nose' - pulling fragrance threads from perfume, tea. A tongue, licking ice cream - vanilla, butter pecan; slurping sauces, sensing spices.
Today, I am an ear, hearing voices:
flowers singing, angels talking, clouds scuttling across a blank slate sky.
Inside my healing house, a woman is resting. Her limbs float - heavy and light. Strong and then weak. Her toes are right where they’ve always been. Her fingers stiff one moment, loose the next.
Around her, a world is moving.
Bees buzz zucchini flowers which have (finally) bloomed.
This is how the fruit comes. Now is when the fruit comes. This is how the fruit comes.
The gift is delivered. The blossom closes and falls. The tiniest squash appears, ready to grow.
Inside my healing house, the floor is made of moss, perforated by plantain.
Outside the red umbrella roof, a kite turns and turns, its long green tail tangled around the pole.
My bed is a swing. My table, three strips of lumber, laid atop the arms of a black iron chair. I place my tea there, my water, my cell phone.
The wind whispers over me,
blessing blessing blessing.
Spells buzz around me,
gifting and gifting.
The farm at my feet.
The horses pacing the paddock.
All around it all around us all around
the forest,
I sleep.
My husband is an architect. He makes the world. But first he makes models out of blueprints and glue sticks so people can see what they’re getting into.
He lays out the floor plan, the en suite bathroom, the open plan kitchen. He drapes lights across the ceiling and plumbs invisible spaces with flows of water, electricity, central air. At client meetings, he delivers these dollhouses like birthday cakes. He takes the roof off, they peer inside.
Today, my husband handed me a pre-birthday planning card, which he made out of the lid of a green shoe box. It was decorated with hearts and stars.
Amy Day is coming. It reads. Think about what you would like to do for your birthday?
“Well, brain surgery,” I said.
And then I laughed.
And then he laughed.
Four weeks in, our humor has darkened.
“Also strawberry shortcake," I said, even though I am not eating dairy or gluten or sugar any more.
A plane soars over from the opposite direction.
A scammer calls asking if I’m me.
“I am,” I tell her. “Who are you?”
She hangs up.
Right now, I have a very mild headache.
Right now, my limbs are stiff from yesterday’s PT
where, I haven’t exercised this much in years,
I realized,
stepping up and stepping down.
Where, I walked on the treadmill (pretty fast) for eight minutes
without getting winded.
Where I couldn’t stand too close to the wall. There are still these shapes, moving in front of my eyes. “You can do that one sideways,” Carson assured me.
I did it. Sideways.
Then, I turned around and did the other side.
This morning, I lay on the floor and snapped a selfie.
Until today, I didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know
if I am still me.
In the photo, one of those “LIVE” moving images that capture the movement of feeling across a face, I saw a woman lying on a purple mat, brown hair curling softly around her head. I watched her test her smile and then, really smile. Still me.
Still me, I watched her realize as I, watching, also realized it, over and over again.
Amy, you have absolutely blown my mind. This is one of the most powerful poems I’ve ever read in my life. sending you love and prayers and hugs and everything.
Thinking of you and hoping your surgery goes well.