It is the last day of May 2012, a mostly quiet day with myself and Beetle. I have been feeling so depressed the last several days that today I spent the day doing physical things around the house that need to be done as well as being outside as much as possible.
Beetle and I went for a walk, our usual path into the woods around the local college. We came up to a place along the creek where a large tree had been washed off the bank, her massive roots still somewhat clinging to the eroding slope. Beetle made a spontaneous jump down the bank and then couldn't get back up. In fact, her whole body slipped down into a hole through the decrepit roots that sunk into a muck that she could not pull herself out of. I slid down onto the unstable root surfaces and pulled her back up. It was precarious. My footing was not secure and there were only a few places where the space didn't collapse with our weight. Once I got her up from the hole, she went down into the creek bed, shook and then climbed back up. I wasn't sure what was going to happen and I was still very precariously positioned and worried about what both of our weights would do to our grasp as I pushed her up the rest of the bank, then followed her, my feet slipping with each placement. Once back on solid ground, I felt the adrenaline and then later down the path the emotions came.
You see, Phoenix, these last several days I have been praying for some sense of rootedness again. With J. gone I am struggling with feeling a sense of ground. In so many ways, I have not only let go of J., but also a way of life: partnership. And for all of the ways that structure was not good for me, it was also very good for my sense of place, my sense of home, ground, root. So, to literally find myself trying to balance myself on roots whose base had been and was currently being eroded, dislodged, was, well, a bit wuwu. It was like materializing where I am internally. Not only was I there trying to secure myself, I was there trying to save Beetle. And, I'm not being dramatic. I think had I not been able to get her out of that hole, she might have drowned. So, the desperate imperative to save Beetle added the perfect physical manifestation of how I feel inside. Freaky. And...some of the tears that came later came with the words: the roots held. We are safe. The roots held for me.
So, the end the day, Beetle and I went down by the pond to watch night fall. For several weeks and nights before J. moved out last July, J. and I would sit beside one another outside and do the same thing: watch night fall. I distinctly remember appreciating those times and thinking: I want to remember this, how this feels to simply sit beside my beloved J. as the inevitable happens. Night falls. That can be counted on. So, Beetle and I counted on that root tonight and watched her come through the bats, the sounds of crickets, frogs, birds and water flowing.
I feel like I am facing again the reality of our breakup and all the desperate imperative emotions that go with being so scared of the inevitable and the unknown. This no doubt is part of my felt sense that my ground has been eroded again and my roots are desperately searching and clinging. I am so scared. And, Phoenix, today was a gift, I know. A gift that there is something that anchors me by reflecting me. It's not another person. Or even an animal. Something more mysterious. But/and that Mystery certainly works through animals and people sometimes. But today She was there in the Earth. In that tree's roots that held my weight, my desperation, my fear and my heavy depression.
My love always to you, Phoenix. wherever you are...
Me
