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Tilting towards the sun
Mar. 21st, 2023 08:43 amEquinox has passed. Fittingly, this is the week where snow is warming into liquid water. Geese group up and each group guards its puddle, splashing and spraying water and posturing and calling to each other. Everything is dripping. The driveway ice has dropped two inches, leaving a tarp and my truck and any other obstructions to the sun sitting on pillars while streamlets run down and back to disappear under the snow. The fences have grown a foot as the snow slowly subsides: on my one window that was covered I can see it consolidate from fluffy white into shimmering blue ice underneath. This is how glaciers are formed.
I celebrated this equinox by loving things, gently and carefully: my animals, which I've been practicing with, and people just a little around the edges. Maybe I'm waiting to love my garden because it's such a huge project, such a huge part of my heart, but it's beginning to seem possible. It feels like learning to walk: one step at a time, sometimes I try and find that I'm back on the ground, and sometimes I cross a distance without noticing until afterwards.
I went out and shoveled the sundeck without any clothes on at solar noon and my skin couldn't remember what to do: do we sunburn with the sun still so low in the sky? How do we deal with this kind of radiant heat? It was lovely. It's reached 8 or 10 degrees out even.
I'm getting a little less sleepy. I'm not functional, but I do have moments when I'm beginning to feel close to fully awake. I still can't think well. I've never had good working memory, but for a long time I've been able to repurpose the part of my mind that forms words right before I speak them for that use. Now that is gone too. I can't perform data manipulations in my head at all: I can't do 10 + 12 unless I write down the 10 and the 12, for example, because I can't remember the original numbers plus do the operation in my head at the same time, but if I'm looking at them I can easily perform the operation.
Doctor's appointments continue, slowly.
Hazard has been roaming outside again, and his coat is soft instead of heavy. I watched him jump atop a pallet the other day, and when it fell over he shook himself off and complained to me. It's good to see. I was worried about him and now I'm not, though I suspect I'll need to prepare for next winter to keep him sufficiently entertained.
Whiskey continues to snuggle me relentlessly and Demon bestows the favour of his lounging, purring attention twice a day or so. Whiskey has definitely won in the last several years: he gets to sit on me more or less when he wants now, laptop or not, though he respects mealtimes.
Avallu comes in for snuggling most evenings, waiting outside the dog door and distressing the cats by blocking it with his back, and Thea comes in many mornings. This weather makes Thea ecstatic: she runs in joyous circles around the house and poor Avallu has more invitations to play than he can handle. He'll come put his side against my leg and lean, looking at me for help as she rockets around. She's dug a bed beside a large square haybale, the 3' x 8' ones, and has set up most of her housekeeping there. As livestock guardian dogs they have such a stable temperament and they are usually very low-energy unless there's a threat. I rarely get to see them act like playful puppydogs, and it's fun. As the season heats up they'll seek shade and slow down again.
I sit on the couch with the cats and watch "vocal coach reacts to--" videos and sing along. Last night I made a chocolate cake to go with the can of pork stew I pulled out of the pantry. I've permanently opened the curtains to the patio door and I've even cleaned the porcelain parts of the bathroom. Each day is incrementally healing. It's been so painful; it's just good to not be in pain, and so good to be actively loved by living creatures who accept me absolutely.
The days are getting better maybe but I'm not keeping track. We're all tilting towards the sun together but I'm not thinking about it right now. It's just a day that's actually ok, and then another.
I celebrated this equinox by loving things, gently and carefully: my animals, which I've been practicing with, and people just a little around the edges. Maybe I'm waiting to love my garden because it's such a huge project, such a huge part of my heart, but it's beginning to seem possible. It feels like learning to walk: one step at a time, sometimes I try and find that I'm back on the ground, and sometimes I cross a distance without noticing until afterwards.
I went out and shoveled the sundeck without any clothes on at solar noon and my skin couldn't remember what to do: do we sunburn with the sun still so low in the sky? How do we deal with this kind of radiant heat? It was lovely. It's reached 8 or 10 degrees out even.
I'm getting a little less sleepy. I'm not functional, but I do have moments when I'm beginning to feel close to fully awake. I still can't think well. I've never had good working memory, but for a long time I've been able to repurpose the part of my mind that forms words right before I speak them for that use. Now that is gone too. I can't perform data manipulations in my head at all: I can't do 10 + 12 unless I write down the 10 and the 12, for example, because I can't remember the original numbers plus do the operation in my head at the same time, but if I'm looking at them I can easily perform the operation.
Doctor's appointments continue, slowly.
Hazard has been roaming outside again, and his coat is soft instead of heavy. I watched him jump atop a pallet the other day, and when it fell over he shook himself off and complained to me. It's good to see. I was worried about him and now I'm not, though I suspect I'll need to prepare for next winter to keep him sufficiently entertained.
Whiskey continues to snuggle me relentlessly and Demon bestows the favour of his lounging, purring attention twice a day or so. Whiskey has definitely won in the last several years: he gets to sit on me more or less when he wants now, laptop or not, though he respects mealtimes.
Avallu comes in for snuggling most evenings, waiting outside the dog door and distressing the cats by blocking it with his back, and Thea comes in many mornings. This weather makes Thea ecstatic: she runs in joyous circles around the house and poor Avallu has more invitations to play than he can handle. He'll come put his side against my leg and lean, looking at me for help as she rockets around. She's dug a bed beside a large square haybale, the 3' x 8' ones, and has set up most of her housekeeping there. As livestock guardian dogs they have such a stable temperament and they are usually very low-energy unless there's a threat. I rarely get to see them act like playful puppydogs, and it's fun. As the season heats up they'll seek shade and slow down again.
I sit on the couch with the cats and watch "vocal coach reacts to--" videos and sing along. Last night I made a chocolate cake to go with the can of pork stew I pulled out of the pantry. I've permanently opened the curtains to the patio door and I've even cleaned the porcelain parts of the bathroom. Each day is incrementally healing. It's been so painful; it's just good to not be in pain, and so good to be actively loved by living creatures who accept me absolutely.
The days are getting better maybe but I'm not keeping track. We're all tilting towards the sun together but I'm not thinking about it right now. It's just a day that's actually ok, and then another.
