Beads of Beauty

Stringing together a week

Dear Starlight,

You know when you are running on a treadmill and you set the settings to a hilly mode that’s rapidly moving you up and down? That’s what the terrain of this week has felt like—running up and down hills while not really getting anywhere, and having your mind dissociated from your body.

You madly doom scroll through your own imagination, create lists, revisit and rehash challenging conversations, and daydream of other futures—all while you run in place and watch the person next to you run with what, from the outside, could be called ease, while you are not breathing.

Someone said to me after I had an all-encompassing migraine that did me in midweek, “Maybe you are just exhausted?”

And yes, I think that’s what it is, because I’ve also had three consecutive nights of dreaming about both work and sleeping. I mean—how weird is it to be sleeping and dreaming about sleeping?

But what I don’t think I know how to manage is how to manage being exhausted and still having work to do.

The real win of the week, after a flunky Tuesday, was waking up early Wednesday and taking myself for a walk in the woods and a visit to a waterfall. (Please note: this is a powerful remedy for any woes!)

It puzzles me that there are never people by the river’s edge or the waterfall’s mouth.

I brought my little notepad and wrote freely–

It’s ok you don’t know.

This tree grew up here.

A branch extended over the rushing stream,

leaves dancing on the breeze of the ionized air,

like a finger moving to a melody,

magically invoking spirit, shadows,

shimmering rhythm of glee.

Swirls and whirlpools greeting each other

in the rolling waters.

Russshhhhhhhhh the waterfall roars

but also like a mother with her finger to her lips—

Shhhhhhhhhh invoking silence and awe.

Rushhhhhhhhh the water gushes over rocks

in hurried ribbons of white.

The starlight sketched in the curves of the tide.

While you don’t know everything,

you do know beauty and love are awesome.

You do know to come here

when you don’t know anything else.

And,,,

Once when I was a young woman I wore a bathing suit from some time long before me. It had a pretty pantaloon bottom and a rouged ribcage. It was printed with globs of purple flowers. I wore it inappropriately out as an outfit–out and about for ice-cream and errands. I wore it proudly like a minxy cat. I’d walk by strangers and feel the wind of whispers and head turns as I giggled and licked my icecream. I wish I dared to do this more often–to play with the power of my prettiness, to flirt like a turkey or bird of paradise.

(I like these snippets and maybe one day they will be more—or not)

That’s what this week felt like–lots of down–which, overall wasn’t great.

But in the midst of it, I also created and found surprising moments of delight. I decided to mark down some of them so that I could drop into them a little more.

So I could remember them, scroll backwards even a day, and be able to say: “How amazing my life is, how beautiful it is here now.”

I have two weeks left until I’m able to have a summer break from “work,” but my personal life is so much work right now… I don’t know…

But I do know that even in this mucky time, I did find gorgeous moments of delight.

And maybe by recounting these moments—like a string of prayer beads—I can feel both grateful and tired, happy and sad, excited and scared…

This week:

The wild animals don’t run away from me anymore (the deer, the baby bunny)

The hawk feather lay in my path

The red setting sun over the mountains and river sunk into my heart staining it forever magenta

The delicious dairy free ice cream at Fortunes that tickled my tongue with sharp mint and lime

The opulent fragrance of honeysuckle at night

The giant gargbage bag of elegant clothes passed forward to me by a friend

The funny handbag with a face on it that my son found for me

The white roses picked outside and brought indoors for swooning

The steady routine of “my” beavers swimming up and down the river to their work and home

The delicious dinner and full moon conventical

Reading this list, I realize my run was not to nowhere.