It's windy today and the yellowing trees toss and wave like Broncos fans bemoaning an interception. Our internal affairs mirror the outside drama: my oldest got up at 4:30am to swim, wailing of a sleepless night; my middle child's bus was twenty minutes late, resulting in anxious text messages with frowning emojis; and our youngest staggered out of bed complaining of an upset stomach.
It's strange how a series of events can erode even a deep sense of peace. I swam in the outdoor pool from 5 - 6am while Aden's team took up the indoor space. The dark skies were unbroken by moon or stars, the pool only lit by random floodlights. No radio interrupted the stillness, and only two other swimmers parted the waters. Occasionally a maple leaf darted and danced into the pool - or my shoulder - on its way to winter sleep. As I paddled and kicked through three 800's, I meditated on the teens inside, the torn fibers of my bicep tendon, the small tear in the rotator cuff. There was no pain, only a detailed recognition.
After I dropped my daughter at high school I had to merge onto southbound I 25, where the traffic tore at my sense of peace within minutes. That was followed by a series of unpleasant emails which required even more distasteful phone calls to the bank and insurance companies, and the shards of peace broke and fell onto the unclean kitchen floor. After a morning full of errands and phone calls, I am only beginning to breathe again, trying to recall through my writing that sense of peace I felt so early this morning. It's still there, underlying everything. I'll do my best to find it, iron it out, and wrap myself inside.
No comments:
Post a Comment