[Blog (Non-channeled) May 2010]

There was a reason why I kept hearing my inner voice telling me in the hospital to accept all the pain medication I was offered. It felt odd, like I was telling a not-truth, because I felt remarkably little pain then. I was almost sure the nurses were looking at me skeptically, but they continued to give and I took. I kept hearing that it would help me rest and heal.

When I returned home I continued to feel remarkably good, so I took less medication. Didn't think I needed it. Was even "over it," maybe. Monday night I felt great and even danced; Tuesday was less good, but I felt I had overdone Monday and was paying for it. Wednesday things really went downhill.

In the hospital they ask you to rate pain on a scale of 1-10. By Wednesday I was back up into 7-8 territory. I had scaled back taking medication when I felt better because I had a limited amount of it and my linear mind told me that healing happens linearly; that if I felt good on Monday I should be feeling even better on Wednesday.

A should! I knew I’d find some in here. There are plenty of shoulds connected to the concept of pain for me, and they’ve all come up this past week. Most of them – like most shoulds – are pretty unreasonable and filled with ego, but they are present nonetheless.

[Blog (Non-channeled) May 2010]

After skating along this past week high above the clouds on the love and well-wishes of so many (and also judicious use of pain medication), yesterday I found myself falling. Off balance. At loose ends. And uncomfortable.

Not only did this 3-inch hole in my foot begin to REALLY HURT, just when my linear mind thought it ought to stop hurting, but I lost my balance entirely. Oh, it’s more than a metaphor. This pain makes me a total wuss and even though I am allowed to take baby steps on my toes aided by my new friend Cane, I didn’t want to. It hurt. And I realized how housebound I am. Can’t take the trash to the curb. Can’t water the flowers out front. Can just get from bedroom to kitchen to living room and back again, circling round the same triangle all day as little as possible, hopping on one leg.

There is a metaphor here somewhere.

Off balance. And not liking it.

I sing for the dying.

We come into the world through our mothers, in messiness and effort. When we are born, a thousand silent throats sing us into being. If we are strong enough, we raise our own throats and welcome ourselves into uncertain worlds with a single exploratory cry.

We are here.

Dying is much the same as birth. We live in a culture that avoids death, fears it, puts it away in dimly-lit nursing home rooms that are sparsely furnished with the fading memories of 30,000 sunrises and 30,000 sunsets.

I sing for the dying.

I sit quietly, reverently, with two or three other women, at the bedsides of people who know the that their remaining number of breaths is dwindling with each exhalation. Together we join heartbeats and throats, creating a soft river of song that floats away gently, carrying with it one weary traveler.