Tuesday, May 28, 2013

grief

My Nana is gone. She died Saturday morning. I went to work on Saturday and passed a horrible thing. A deer had been hit by a car and she lay in front of it trying to move but her back legs were crumpled beneath her. Traffic was moving so slowly and I just stared at her face and started to cry. She looked so confused. I called my mother and she told me about Nana.

I am so lucky to have lived so long without really knowing grief. The past week I had been preparing for it, waiting for the phone call. I had thought of what it would feel like and how I would react. It was nothing like what I had thought. I did not think I would feel it so physically.

Thankfully I am surrounded by love and kindness. My coworkers leapt into action and covered shifts for me, while offering support and care. My husband has been so amazing; I do not know how to tell him.

Sunday while my mother and her sisters made arrangements, I prowled around my father's backyard picking at the dirt. I collected snail shells to show my sister. At one point I swore I could smell onions and hunted among the overgrowth until I found little wild ones. I came home with the shells, a stone with a hole straight through, and the jawbone of some little creature. I don't know what I will do with them, but finding them made me not think about things for awhile.


I have been home alone today, trying to process. I did yoga. I made soup. The tea kettle has been singing all day. I took some time and took a nourishing bath after reading Lindsay's post on sacred bathing, with candles, herbs (dandelion, sage, and rosemary), salts, and let them seep into my skin as I watched the steam rise from the water. Baths with herbs make me feel so peaceful, like I am the shore that the sea is drifting weeds onto. I embody divine love at every moment. I am so grateful that I had today to tend to myself.




Tomorrow is the wake. I will spend tonight in my mother's home, trying to offer what help I can.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

a heaviness on my heart

I've been in a haze the past few days. My mother's mother, my Nana, is close to death. I have never lost anyone close to me before and while I know that it is part of life, that we all must die, I am afraid of living through the feelings that come with it.

I have been lucky in life so far. Nana has had cancer twice and has always been full of life. My grandmother had blackouts while driving and a pacemaker put in and still is around to teach me to quilt. My uncle had a brain tumor and walked out of the hospital the day after surgery. My sister had heart surgery at nine months and bounced back with vigor. My mother had her lungs fill up with blood after her hysterectomy and thankfully was saved. I know it is not realistic, but everyone I know has always bounced back - I thought they might always do so.

I do not know how to handle death.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Beautiful Giveaway


If you follow my on basically any social media you know I have been posting about this giveaway this week. Wild Rain of the sacred life of rain is giving away a beautiful piece by Laura of Roots and Feathers. I love this so much and just think it would look beautiful in my new apartment entry way.Today is the last day to enter and I encourage you to throw your name in here! And while you are there please check out the overall blog because I think it is really worth reading.

Not too long ago husband and I thought we had a new apartment in the bag and were packing when we got a call that they had messed up some paperwork and given it to someone else. I was really upset and bummed, especially because of how disappointing our current place is. It is not a good apartment and has tons of maintenance issues that don't seem to be high on the list of priorities for our landlord. I desperately want to be in an area that feels like home and this place just isn't it.

So on a whim I emailed the landlord of what was my favorite apartment in Madison where I sublet for a few months when I was newly single. I just wanted to see if it would be coming available  Within hours I got a response that it would be at the start of fall and that there was a chance we could move in earlier. This place is beautiful, tons of light, hardwood floors and right across from a park. I am elated that we are going to be able to get out of here and into a new place.

Monday, May 6, 2013

fresh breath


I've been thinking about this blogging space. I think that I have left it again and again is because it is so specific. I don't want to be just a book review, I want to talk about how these books connect with my life and what's going on with me. I want to share more. If one day it is a book review and the next it is my thoughts on a video game or the way I felt when looking at a lone flowering tree in the midst of empty farmland then that is what I am going to do. I get so discouraged when I think of girlreads because I am usually blogging about a book weeks after I read it due to my desire to keep to a rigid to do list.

So I'm taking a fresh breath and turning this into what I want for it.