sucker punches

i got pulled over tonight. a friend and i saw the hundred foot journey, which is amazingly good and lovely by the way. it'd been a good day. i got a pedicure. i played my best game of hearts today. i had a good day at work. brio's had italian wedding soup (this is not always the case). it didn't rain; i thought for sure it was going to because there was that tropical storm that blasted mexico, and in the past few evenings, we've seen some pretty impressive cloud cover here, no doubt because of dolly. i wouldn't've minded rain, except phineas does not have a functioning air conditioning system, and so i'm driving with the roof open and the windows down; i did not want to get drenched. i browsed a bit in barnes & noble, straightened a bay of books, skimmed a couple of pages of some michael connelly novels, managed to entice a woman to read the language of flowers rather than some sophie kinsella crap. spent some quality time with a friend and watched a REALLY good flick.

for the most part, it was a really good day.

the not-so-attractive bits: i planted my left hand smack dab in the center of a fire ant bed, so now i've got some lovely little bite marks all over it. i've some sort of an infection that's wreaking havoc somewhere in my digestive tract (i'm almost done with the antibiotics, thank god), and the ice cream, popcorn and coca-cola i had right before and during the film was just too much for my still-weakened system, so i got sick. on my way to a convenience store to purchase a roll of tums and a bottle of water, some guy in an s.u.v got too close to me; his lights blinded me so that i couldn't see the road well. i put my hazards on in hopes that he would use one of the other two vacant lanes to pass. but he stayed where he was. so i stopped. he stayed where he was. i stuck my hand out and gestured for him to go by. and then i saw the outline of the lights atop his car. which is, of course, when he turned those lights on.

no biggie. i just have to tell him that i have special k vision and couldn't see. and then i have to tell him that i don't wear contacts or glasses, that my eyes were crossed when i was born, that i have no depth perception because of it, that it can't be corrected, that at night i rely very heavily on what i see in my mirrors, that i couldn't see because of the lights.

all i want is some tums.

i don't want to think about the conversation the friend and i had before the film started--about what i'm doing with my life, what i'm not doing and why i'm not doing it. i don't want to think about the comment a woman left on my facebook page today--the only therapist i'd seen in my adolescence that i respected, the only one who seemed to respect me... i don't want to think about how, maybe, just maybe if i'd actually had the courage to tell her what troubled me then, that i'd be so much better off now. i don't want to think about the fact that i don't have a passion for anything. i just want the tums and the water and my bed.

so i pull into a parking lot, tell the cop that i've those vision issues and wait for him to do his initial check and come back so i can tell him that those issues can't be corrected. and there before me is this tree. and all the leaves are golden. dry. dead.

i feel like that tree. and i really wish my brain would leave me alone. i'm tired of the sucker punches. i'm tired of the battles. the losses and failures.

copper lets me go. i get my tums. i go home. and cry. again. and then i sit down to jot a quick note on facebook that more people need to see that movie.

i look to my left at a printout my mother's left on her desk. an email. a spiritual thought for the day.

it's a passage from john o'donohue's anam cara: a book of celtic wisdom.

i won't quote the whole thing. this is a long enough post as it is. but this, the beginning of beannacht for josie:

on the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

that passage... the fact that it was there, in such a spot that my attention would be drawn to it... that must be the clay.