Sitting at my pc last night, searching through files my eyes fell across a document titled: DirectionstoRuth.doc. Something in me felt a bit of a surge, maybe I’d find that part of my self currently so flattened there’s no distinction beyond fatigue. Maybe it held words like shovels digging up long-lost inspiration, clearing out the overload, pushing back the tide of exhaustion. I laughed at myself immediately but went ahead to open the document, remembering it was most likely an old file of directions to my home. And it was, but what a telling moment.
From there I found an old IMP outpouring, posted it and went off to bed painfully aware of how impervious I am not right now. Bolstering self and shoring up the energy to put one foot and then the other gets…old. The only truly authentic move for me was to collapse in bed. Gee, I felt so real.
After getting up to face the day, I realize I’m too much spent at 8am. This sounds awfully like whining. It really isn’t. It’s an acknowledgement that I need to pull back, that my struggles with chronic fatigue/fever/aches and the work to be an actual resource for my children while taking three classes is taking a toll. Ideally, I’d get to crash for two weeks literally resting constantly with no stress. That would pull me out of the slump and how luxurious it would be, no? Not possible.
So, words will be fewer here for a while unless some grand surge lifts me out of the flatlands and soon. Maybe a quote or two will haunt this blog until then.
In the meantime…
“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.”
J. Ruth Kelly 