On the eve of my 71st bday, with home still not rebuilt from the superstorm of a year and a half ago’s devastation and still sheltering in the little apt/ storage unit I’ve fondly named Mt 6 Manjaro, I realize that I teeter on the edge of great courage and persistence in faith in spirit, angels and unseen good yet to manifest and exhaustion from hanging on by my fingernails; wondering, when I’m so overwhelmed with a million things I ‘must’ do in areas of jobs I never thought I’d ever have chosen as even one life career, and ask, “What the heck, God?!?”
I hear people talk to me and impart the nuts and bolts of their architect, engineer, surveyor, inspector, banker, insurancer, tax assessor, environmentalist, attorney, federal lawness & N.Y. risingship, and I know I’m listening intently, trying to look fairly intelligent and scribbling notes faster than a scribe under the watchful eye and whip of Pharaoh, and yet, as quickly as I fill up the information laced at me faster than the speed of light (because everyone is on short time and shorter fuses) all the words and never-ending lists of new things I ‘must’ accomplish in order to move on to the next baby step plateau, sift like shifting sands of the Kalahari, out my ears into the wind; the never ceasing wildness of wind here on the shores of the Atlantic where I feel like I’m no longer at an American seaside of softly rolling waves to silver shore but rather on high crags and cliffs of Wales overlooking the wild, wind-whipped, angry North sea in perpetual winter. It is a no man nor woman’s land. No green nor color. Just the ever-wailing wind sanding the hide off humans and wearing energy to a wraith.
Help needed this week has not come, from any source or promise. Common courtesy was absent. No one even returned phone calls…not those paid to help nor friends who said they would.
All leave me behind the eight ball with deadlines crushing down on me, I’m ill prepared to meet on my own. Disappointment deluges.
Even my overall case manager went on vacation in the very week I need to submit sheaves of legal documents to protect my claim to funds for rebuild. My phone ate the contents list I worked on for over a year and now I face starting climbing that Everest all over again and losing untold thousands of dollars which would help sustain me for the coming year, which all the ‘experts’ say a rebuild will take.
Perhaps the angels, who have been whispering in my ear all week, “They don’t call ’em dead lines for nothing!” have something there.
Looking back over this year, when I thought I’d be back in my home… such an optimist, I, … the view is of a landscape of sadness and laughter borne of a wringing the sardonic out of this satire life’s become. It’s been more of a ‘might as well laugh or you’ll wind up crying’ sort of strength of stressed survivorship.
I’ve seen caring and compassion; coarseness and coldness in this massive recovery. People are tired; backs up against the wall hardened or worn down to giving-up from the insiders and shocked or ‘don’t want to hear it anymore’ from the insulated outsiders.
It is interesting to be treated like a pain in the ass or the village idiot and certainly a challenge to remember who you are; still stay determined; continue to speak up and ask for help in the face of barriers of b.s. empty promises and ‘we’d love to help you but nobody helped us,’ barely buried attitudes.
All this makes it a head-shaking task to trust anyone. There’s a post Katrina part of Sandy aftermath, being treated as a criminal instead of a person needing aid and, unfortunately, the mistrust comes from organizations meant to help and, sadly, sometimes from people you know who you think know you.
I know I want to think the best of people and hope they think of me as trustworthy too and yet here I sit on the brink of the next decade, sort of thinking ‘Who gives a hoot what I think?’
‘What am I doing here?’
Relationships have shredded and people I love are gone. Even when they are right in front of you they are off in their own story and into the tangle of detaching and coming apart.
‘Where’s the love?’ I wonder dejectedly to myself
…And then Nikki, my God daughter off in Arizona, messages me from out of the blue; sending a photo of a woman in a neon green (my fav color) shirt which reads, “Blessings to all Earth Angels!” (the appellation I call all of us here on Earth). She says, “Saw this & thought of you!” and includes a big smiley face.
I have now had two gifts on the eve of my birthday…a nap and a photo reminder of who I am; who I am to others …a reminder that I am still thought of, no matter how far the distance in time or geographics.
This puts me back in focus…
In the flow of allowing the Universe to bring me better than I can imagine as I let go of this narrow, chaotic confusion which blurs my vision and hurts my heart with its seeming importance in a sea of illusion of what matters.
I let go.
The third gift.
I let go of people and their journeys and move away, relinquishing judgement, as I simply see who can and who will; who can’t and who will not.
It is once again down to a ‘noticing.’
And one must be still and silent to notice…to allow.
And see the simple and most powerful gifts….
The love and light in my life, no matter who or what goes out; the fact that I’m still here, so there must be more for me to enjoy; more light to shine and be shined upon; more ‘Aha!’ moments; more peace; more joy; more perfect health in a changing body; new lessons to learn; more ease; more fun!
All with my dear Tom, ‘the one I love who loves me,’ ever at my side, with whom to enjoy the best of the best still coming and evolving all around us. We’ve had some wonder full adventures so far and we are fortunate in each other’s good company; still green and growing.
In this musing, this looking back, this seeing and being open to whatever is to come…and go…
In gratitude for all the joys and griefs of this past year, of which there have been many of each…..
the path opens in me and before me…..
I let go of all to receive more.
In Light and Love
Florence
eFlorence 