Free As a Bird
A 3-day staycation from to do lists & politics was just what I needed to resurrect my will to carry on
Three-day staycation
Wiping clear my calendar
Heeding solely whim
Today’s, pruning leggy plants
Leaves ride the breeze like songbirds
How glorious it felt to take three days off from life!
Oops, I misspoke, didn’t I? What I took three days off from was soldiering through my interminably deadly to-do list. My body – my commanding officer – insisted I go on leave.
My bones were poised to mutiny – heavy as iron, barricading any desire to do anything except collapse in a prone position. My eyes mustered enough will to read a paragraph or watch ten minutes on YouTube. Then, like a garage door whose circuitry was malfunctioning, it closed and, no matter how hard I tried to open it, refused to oblige. My mind was so shrouded in smog it could only wheeze; creativity choked worse than any golfer’s swing. My spirit was on life support. Paramedics like joy and gratitude hovered nearby, anxiously but out of options.
My well was dry.
Albeit stubborn creature that I am, I refused to accept this until the rope hoisting the bucket frayed then snapped.
MAGA enablers engage unceasingly, excruciatingly in flooding the zone here in the U.S. with harrowing policies and measures. Also, I live in Ground Zero, Los Angeles. DJT’s desire for vengeance against our city’s blueness and our state’s governor appears limitless. A week ago, I witnessed ICE agents arresting a bystander simply for filming them. “Shame on you,” I called out – but quaveringly, which still aggravates me.
I suspect I have a mini case of PTSD plus a humongous sepsis shock of helpless rage. My saline drip was to drop everything – EVERYthing! – and sleep, sleep, sleep. Ten hours a night, two or three naps a day.
Before I collapsed, I sported a bumper crop of deep purple bruises. One, in the crock of my arm from a blood draw. Others on both knees, both shins from a fall across three steps. (Don’t wear flimsy wet flips flops while watering your garden!) Like the bumper crop of zits that plagued my teenage nose before Prom, they refused to fade. After three days of rest, however…voila, my bruises had vanished!
There is a metaphor and message here.
Whatever battle we are waging – whether it involves bruising to-do lists or sadistic sociopaths kicking the daylights, love, grace and vim out of our Constitution/constitution – it is as important to rest as to soldier on.
Yes, rage can be sacred. But so is recreation.
“Don’t stop doing the things you love because you’re scared…that is actually a form of resistance. Showing up and doing the things you love says to an authoritarian, you have no place to root here.” Historian Heather Cox Richardson
I can carry on. I will carry on. Love is coming.
Thank you,
& , for the home at Scribe. Thank you, dearest readers. Love.If you enjoyed this, please visit my Substack, A Septuagenarian Sings.
It's nice to continue reading your posts here, my dear Jenine. You are a talented writer and a valuable source of support for me. I'm trying to get back on track here, and I'll talk about it in Sunday's newsletter on Medium.
There is no rest for the wicked, they say. Well, our rest reminds us what we’re fighting for! Glad you got to rest a bit 😌 I’m located in oc and there were multiple ICE sitings on my street as well. My husband and I have been giving 110% tip to the taco stand venders still standing. Immigrants are the bravest among us.