I’m Okay, I Promise

Some of us exist inside ourselves, and although we love those we love fiercely and without the reserve we save for the rest of the universe, we don’t always reach out to them in normal lines of communication because we are complete within ourselves.

It’s not that we don’t need anyone else to survive, though at times it would seem to be true, it’s just an internal contentment and comfort we take in our own company—something we’re unable to find or unwilling to look for amidst the noise and bustle of a world moving faster than we can move ourselves.

Probably it’s in these particular moments of supreme peace and stillness where the feeling of “out of placeness” is most experienced in this existence which has somehow been thrust upon us. It’s quite unfathomable at times to realize that God in His infinite wisdom and power would cast mercy aside and choose this to be the time period of my life, and yet how in the mortal world should I find a way to survive without a microwave and a cell phone?

 He did show supreme mercy to me. He KNEW.

Even though I’m absolutely sure I could go to ground if it came to it after something of an apocalyptical nature and work the earth with my hands to yield my daily sustenance and do it all in virtual oneness and silence, apparently my Higher Power surmised as to how often I would need Pinterest in my aloneness for instructions, because I’m sure not going to be the one to breach the blessed silence by voicing a question aloud and even if I did, I’d be talking to myself because I’ve chosen solitude over company.

That was a ridiculously long sentence, and you’re welcome.

Anyway, I do indeed talk to myself, and quite often. I tell myself it’s because I’m the only one who’s listening anyway and as I look around at the “no one here” I realize I’m not kidding around with myself.

The tinnitus keeps me from being completely sane but if not for that, I would make a case for it actually being the pinnacle of health to talk to yourself. In reality, I can’t hear me anyway. It’s just that I know what I said so it works the same way.

The occasional crow pipes up every once in a while to let me know I still have friends left in this world, and somehow I know they really are friends even though they refuse to eat at my table.

I feed birds all over the yard with creative feeders made from cups and saucers, strainers, actual bird feeders (those are the weird ones), tables, plates, a urinal—well, you get the picture. I get lots of cardinals, wrens, and the most lovely doves but the crows just caw at me to remind me to sit down and write and quit worrying about the birds.

God feeds them anyway.

That’s how it happened, you know, with the crows.

I was about four years into stagnation—had been to therapy over it even—and could barely write a word and what I did write wasn’t worth reading.

And then one day I was alone (go figure), working outside doing garden stuff, and I heard a solitary crow caw.

Suddenly my mind went back home.

Not back home to the home I was standing outside of, but back home to my childhood again, and the words that had been trapped inside came pouring out. I picked up right where I left off and book number two was born, four years after I wrote the first one that hadn’t even been published because I couldn’t wrap it up.

I guess that’s what the crow was saying, “Publish your dang book already,” or something like that (I don’t speak Crow, neither kind), and so I did. I published the first one and will have the second one ready to go soon.

The books are a humorous look at my childhood in the South and the things I faced—a lot of things we all face growing up.

One thing I know now that I didn’t know then (actually, I know a lot more than just one thing now, but I was being a bit specific, or was about to be) is that I was meant to live somewhat of a solitary life.

Oh, I don’t mean solitary like I wouldn’t get married five times and have that many kids.

Wow, that hurts my heart to say!

Not the marriage part. Men come and go, at least that’s been my unfortunate experience. And we’ll talk about that topic one day. Just not today.

But the kids. Because I HAVE had 5 kids, and I only have 2 remaining children. This is a tragedy I will never wrap my heart and mind around and, yes, part of the reason I choose my aloneness. But we will also explore this heartbreaking topic again another day.

Today, I feel a gentle breeze on my face and see a clear blue sky here in Louisiana, and although there has been great heartache recently and always in our country and world, I have drawn a small and temporary circle around myself and I’m in it, rejoicing in my life, and peace, and hope, and solitude.

And also realizing how blessed I am to be able to step out of my circle into the arms of my family any time I want to.