Weekend mornings are for sunbathing, swimming, and reflecting at
Barton Springs.
***
The toilet is clogged. I learn
too late. In horrified screeches I beg and plead as the toilet revolt begins.
Profanities trample the niceties as the polluted water surges over the rim,
splattering cleaning supplies and toilet paper thoughtfully (well, thoughtfully
until just now) placed behind the seat.
All tiredness from the early
morning of travel evaporates into a shot of raging adrenaline. I boomerang
around the possessed toilet, saving the bath mat, several rolls of toilet
paper, and pushing the trash can back from the encroaching waters.
Cruel thoughts arise about the
quickly departed house sitter who was tasked with caring for the garden (the
flowers look like Texas road kill) and the dog (she’s happy and well-fed).
“College student,” my neighbor
rolls her eyes as she places dishes away. Her husband chuckles and ventures to
the garage to find the requested plunger. I stand in their kitchen breathing in
the sweet aroma left over from breakfast and want to drown my responsibilities
in syrup.
Plunger in hand, I march back to
the gurgling toilet. I slip off my bejeweled sandals and store them in a dry,
safe spot in the hallway away from the miniature flood and face my opponent.
The feelings I had been
mindfully suppressing since I stepped off the airplane and back into Austin
have howled loose. I had explained to them in the taxi ride back to my new home
that I would listen to them once I had a plate of breakfast tacos, preferably
another cup of coffee and a journal so I could take diligent notes, become
clear on the core reasons behind the feelings, and utilize the emotional charge
to launch a fresh chapter here in Austin.
Instead, the feelings are
unclogged to muster the energy needed to free up the toilet. The plumbing is
set right. I’m left an emotional mess.
I blame the unexpected wave of
grief on that irreverent clogged toilet. In fact, I blame the house sitter who
dashed away before cleaning up the mess she made…or I’d like to blame her. I’d
rather confront and tackle a plugged up plumbing system than the truths this
sadness holds. I’m tempted to bury my feelings in busyness, and there’s an
overwhelm of happenings in Austin that could prompt me to stay going and doing
for weeks, but my energy is deflated. My energy retracts to the pain point,
slowing steps, freezing purposeful action.
There’s no running, then. Only
swimming.
I plunge into the sadness. I
wade into the depths. I listen to the body, a body that is recovering from
trauma, and this a truth that is hard for me to accept.
I tell my friend in Kentucky
that I’m fine, that I’m happily energized actually! I wake up at 5:30am ready to go! She responds, “My Love, that’s not energy. That’s adrenaline.”
I’ve been existing in survival
mode for two months, functioning in the reactivity of flight-freeze-fight. The
toxicity from the stress releases once I am held in loving arms in Kentucky.
The exhaustion catches me by surprise, but not to the ones who love me.
Adrenaline, my love.
I battle the sadness. I’m
frustrated by its weighty, gloomy appearance. I restored and rejuvenated in
Lexington, and the ease and brightened perspective dissipated into a burgeoning
grief in the oppressive Texas heat.
I stop the resistance to what is
real and present. I sit with the sadness and do so while watching Anthony
Bourdain journey through Mississippi, Montana, Moscow. I crave his company.
He’s soothing in his honesty, his heightened sensitivity to hypocrisy, nuances,
bullshit, stories. I’m not a foodie, so I watch to listen and be fed by his
writing, rich and rippling over scenes of cities and countries I cannot spark
the energy to even light the desire to see, which signals that I am in the
depths of grief.
I’m in mourning. And I let
myself grieve.
I mourn the woman I was so close
to becoming. I mourn a life in Austin I almost materialized. I grieve the love
left behind in Lexington, and the opportunities in Austin left unseized because
of deflated energy, a lack of crystalized clarity.
In the sadness, in the heat, in
the fear that I am missing life, and life aches in its fleeting preciousness, I
escape to the springs, to water bathed in morning light.
Barefoot on the pebbled-paved cement,
I walk the length of the pool, crossing a bridge aligned with a fence and peer
down into a small cascade of falls to see the dog swimming section of the
springs. The poodles, the retrievers, the corgis flounce and paddle. The
canines stand on rocks drying off with big, fluffy, fur blurring shakes, and
are gleeful and grinning, I swear, they are grinning, especially the chocolate
lab.
Out of this doggie paradise, I
spot the hound swimming steadily through the tides. His noble head lifted above
the bubbling streams of water, undeterred by the quickening strength of the
current, he continues with purposeful paddles toward his owners awaiting him on
the rocky shore. He emerges from the water with slow, measured steps. He is the
embodiment of elegance, majesty, grace.
Watching his swim, his rise, I
feel a sense of relief and the ease gradually deepens as I slip into the cool
waters of the spring. I float on my back, gently kicking, and training my gaze
on the city’s skyline filling the space in between the trees.
The city will unfold in time.
The desperation and fear lessens. The experiences and the emotions are the
invitations to deepen into myself. The sadness pulls me into the depths, into
inner realms, testing my ability to feel without being consumed, to listen
without judging, to collect the information and honor the wisdom of the body to
initiate action when its ready. When there’s the healing, there will be the
flow of energy to shape the next step.
And hopefully that kick of
energy won’t be needed to unclog a disgruntled toilet, but when life gets messy
and chaotic, the image of that hound’s morning swim reappears. Steady and
patient, working with the currents, and trusting that he will secure solid
ground, one purposeful dog paddle at a time.
