Starting the day and getting through it

As if they heard me, a mating pair of cardinals arrive this morning. It's been a long time, friends. 

I was remembering something from a long time ago that I fear may have altered the course of my life for the worse. We were on our honeymoon in Spain. There was a little town up in the mountains along the coast called Mijas. We were beginning to learn that we didn't agree on very much but we both liked it there. On the edge of town, we discovered a grotto. It was a shrine to the Holy Mother or a particular saint. There were braids of hair tacked to the walls and other offerings made in exchange for intercessory prayers. Maybe in thanks for prayers answered. I found a folded piece of paper tucked into a chink between two stones. It was the address of a young couple who were visiting from Estonia. They requested that the person who found their message write to them. This was at the end of 1997. Enjoying the sentiment, I slipped the paper in my pocket and I never got around to writing that letter. I betrayed their innocent trust. I took their message in bad faith. 

This man said he received a message letting him know that death is safe. That dying is like taking off a too-tight shoe. It made me remember this sense of falling while trying to keep myself gathered together and somehow organized. When I let go of that absurd concern, whatever there was of me was no longer falling. It was soaring through vastness. I think maybe that's how we exit.

A message from Alaska arrives. She's fishing through the ice on the Kuskokwim with her boys who are now grown men. Her dark eyes are probably smiling at them. Proud.  I'm happy at you, she'd sometimes say. And her words had the power to ease pain. 

He said he's traveling right now. This is an alternative to saying,  I'm homeless and have nowhere to be. His person to notify in case of emergency has only a first name and might be living 2,500 miles away. First you came and you gave without taking, I remembered. He said he's out of medication and no longer feeling safe or confident. Then you kissed me and stopped me from shaking, I thought. 

Yeah, I miss her too. 

I found time to run out and get twenty pounds of black sunflower seeds and about five pounds of cracked corn. There were more birds today. I had to let them know that I'm for real. 

Thinking about karaoke tonight - just for a couple of hours. Go out into the world, have a drink, be around other humans, sing a song or two. It's easier to crawl into bed though. 

I tried listening to a pod cast. Someone reading someone else's love letters to the Earth. The first someone was someone I've never heard of while the second someone (the author, now deceased) is someone I admire greatly. I got through the first two and had to stop a few minutes into the third. I'm sick of performances, packages, marketing, consumables, branding, products. Enough of that shit. 

Leave me alone to find something else.