Gifts of this Morning

I'm in an "Oklahoma!" mood this morning: Oh, what a beautiful morning/ Oh, what a beautiful day! This morning is unusually sunny and still: not even enough breeze to move the palm trees, let alone my wind chime. Even the birdsong seems hushed. Noise has abandoned the street on which I live and taken itself elsewhere down the road. It is so quiet I can hear the sound of planes flying out of LAX, a distant grumble in a very clear sky.

A humming bird came to greet me-- on my back porch, where I have no flowers. An angel watching over? A raptor, maybe the one who landed on my front porch a few days ago, came and sat atop the telephone pole, until a crow harassed him and they both went out of sight to play. He was larger than I'd remembered. Do we have red-tails in this neighborhood? Maybe there are raptors-- and angels-- all around.

It isn't often lately that I've awakened to this sunny a world. It has been cloudy more often than not lately, and it rained yesterday, at least for a bit. I'm aware that I look to the weather in the outer world to brighten up my inner one. I sulked a bit yesterday. Maybe today I'll be cheerier.

In this "in-between" time in my life, when I am letting go of so much I was sure of and am so very uncertain of what there might be to hold onto ahead, there are lots of times when I am not at all sure how to feel! I know. That sounds odd, even to me. But the predominate feeling is one of "suspension," which is not really "suspense," because "suspense" is more like a waiting for something to happen when you know something will. "Suspension" is like waiting for something to happen, and you're not sure whether anything will, and more, you're not sure when something does happen whether it will be something you welcome or just one more thing you've been dreading! Sometimes I get to the point where a "good" day is a relatively uneventful one...

Someone once described life as being like swinging on a trapeze: in order to go forward, you've got to let go of the one bar and reach for the bar to come. I have to tell you, I have never liked that metaphor! I mean, even circus performers who practice swinging on trapezes a lot, fall often, even when they have a reasonable assurance that there is indeed a bar coming for them!

I know: timing is everything! Well, when one is told one has to let go of one bar before there is any assurance of the bar to come, if indeed there is a bar to come, then even "suspension" is pretty difficult to maintain! I have to think that "falling" is inevitable.

I think my father is feeling that "drop" now, after my mother's death. I know that our "transitions" are different, but we are finding it comforting to be able to console each other.

And, really, "falling" isn't so bad... No, really, what I mean is, falling isn't so bad IF one has a sense that one was not "flying without a net" in the first place! I have been grateful to find a network of support for me, and I believe my father is discovering something similar (he went to his first bereavement support group this morning). In that way, falling can be both a relief and a joy! There's nothing quite like the drop, the catch, the bounce! All of that is and has been quite gratifying.

After the "fall," though, one faces climbing the ladder and "flying" again... Ahhh, therein lies the trepidation. Lots of days, it looks like a very long way to climb to me.

But today, I am cheered and buoyed by the Life I see around me. It is easy to face the day when the day is as beautiful as this.

You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!/Oklahoma! OK! Today I am "Oklahoma!"

Blessings. I am grateful for your quiet support.