In the Middle

I came to the woods to sit, and to think. My thoughts swirling around in my head like a martini, being shaken, not stirred.

My father is dying. 

To be fair, he's been dying for a couple of years now, but it's the middle of the end. Not the beginning, not the end, but the never ending middle.

Things you know about death and dying are no longer theoretical when you are in this position, and no one can tell you what it's like until you get there. 

Like how you're walking through a fog, but you're constantly aware. You don't register much, but then again, you register everything. 

Like how you truly can compartmentalize. You can go to work, laugh, go for drinks, go out of town, live in the moment, and all of that, but it's ever so exhausting. 

Like how you think you have it all under control, even if you carry all of your stress in your neck. (You just need a new pillow, right?) But one mis-worded text that is inconsequential can send you to the bathroom at work, sobbing. Then you have to tell your co-workers what's wrong, and you get their sorrow and sympathy- and that's the last thing you want. And now you're just embarrassed for over-reacting. 

Like how you find out they're moving your dad to rehab, and your mom is over the moon excited. But all you can think is, still? The ups and downs, the ebbs and flows. Those are what both sustain and kill you at the same time. 

No one can prepare you for how exhausting it all is. Because it goes on for so long, all of it just creeps up on you, and then it falls back into the shadows. But you know it's there, waiting to jump yet again. Over and over, in and out, back and forth. Constantly.

You still forge ahead, because life carries on. And you've got work to do. 

Equilibrium

Equilibrium 

I sit on the beach. Two hours ago I was in the woods. I walked down a serpentine path and watched a snake slither into the grass.

The tide has turned as I sat here and watched. It's all a balance.

It is equilibrium.

I'm contained on an island as a pandemic rages through the world, as it surges in my homeland. I am safe here, but I watch my loved ones from afar in fear. What is my safely compared to theirs? Do we balance each other or cancel each other out? It's all equilibrium.

A black man was murdered by police in Colorado. He was walking down the street, minding his own business. He reminds me so much of my oldest son, but for the color of his skin. I can't balance that out. I cry for him, for all of them. My boy is safe, their boy is dead. That is not balance. No equilibrium.

Sunrise, sunset. Tide comes in, tide goes out. Easy come, easy go. It's a balance. It's equilibrium.