The wind comes from every direction. Any direction. Strands of myself are blowing out, billowing, wrapping across my eyes, getting stuck in my partially open lips.
My mouth is dry. I am at the center of a tornado. It is loud. Chaotic. Dark. But I'm not fighting. I'm not trying to get away.
I am still, in here.
I am still in here
I am still.
I am here.
I can see
even though my eyes are stuffed with sand
because
I'm not looking with my eyes.
When I look with my eyes I see:
laundry
dog hair
a very patchy lawn
lunchboxes
coffee cups
my computer
When I look with my Self, I see:
the grain of wood on the floorboards.
the wrinkles in my pillow,
crumpled crisscrossing lines
that I wake up with on my face.
the faint lines on the bottom of Rose's foot when I check for slivers.
life lines
lines that will stay with her for life.
This is the kind of looking that makes me feel alive, unclenches my jaw.
__
A child is crying. My blood pressure is rising. A backpack needs to be zipped, hair needs to be braided, the bus stop needs to be arrived at. But my eye falls on the bookshelf with its evenly spaced boards and the books leaning at every angle. Order and the disorder existing together. I take a breath a remember that I am here. Now.
Seeing, looking, noticing like this is a lot like dropping my fists when I'm running, opening my palms, stretching my fingers, shaking my hands out like I'm letting something go, so when I fall back into my stride there is a looseness where tension used to be, clarity where the fog had been settling low, and a few full, long breaths that go all the way to the base of my lungs before settling back into a rhythm that's comfortable again, a rhythm I don't have to think about for awhile.
