When snow falls even just a wee bit, softness following
on the howling slams of wind and thunder slapping awake
a peaceful slumber, you sit quietly in the half light
sighing hours later, gulping in the stillness
as it falls outside the window of your reverie.
The words above reflect on the night before last when winds and thunder snarled my sleeping in a surreal rush of clamoring. The noise was akin to dreams and transformations, the kind that sweep you up out of nowhere in a whirlwind of change and awareness. Surreal. Magical. Frightening and exhilarating at the same time. The storm windows on my bedroom windows clanged loudly, evoking visions of trees uprooted, hurling themselves at the night.
So, awakening to snowfall, the gentle quiet of it all was a wonderful contrast and I felt deserved reflection.
Not that it’s about the new year, but I’ve resolved to more posting here in order to participate more in my power to create, however small. One of the challenges of disability, and particularly of the MECFS variety, is that of escaping the sense of feeling imprisoned, held captive by the power of the illness itself and this is especially true as it has real power to do that very thing, to imprison. And so, we veterans of such imprisonment get to learn the sort of freedom that defies chains and bars. It’s not a lesson I’d wish on most folks. But it is what life has dished out to some of us and my past attempts to pretend it might all go away have faded into an awareness that the only way out is through and that sort of pretending becomes a self rejection. I refuse such.
So, here’s to deeper acceptance and finding ways to own and participate in one’s power, bit by bit.
J. Ruth Kelly 