The Furious Spinner

Good morning, Spinners. It is pouring down pissing down raining. The poppies are curled up tight, trying to keep the saucy rain from stripping them bare. Orange petals already line the sidewalk and stairs to our house, looking vaguely like tiny discarded capes. Saturday, during a break in the rain, I took an abalone shell outside and I picked up the baby soft petals and put them in the shell. Then I walked to the back of the yard to the Kuan Yin Peace Garden. The wild has grown up around her, so I couldn't see all of her as I walked toward her. I went on the path through the wild sweet peas I had cleared last week. I thanked Kuan Yin and anyone and anything who helped my mother make it through her operation. Then I placed the bright orange petals on the stark white statue. Blessed be.



My mother woke up Thursday from the operation very confused. She didn't always know the family for the next 48 hours. She was pissed off that my father wouldn't take her home. By Sunday, she knew everybody, and we're hoping she's well on her way to recovery. Thanks to all of you who sent her your best wishes. I appreciate it. I wish health and healing to you and your families, too.

That's all for now. So much is going on that I'm a bit fried and can only think of me and my own. Worldly views will have to wait. The world pulses—you know the way it does when you are exhausted but you can't get enough sleep. Finally last night—trusting that my mom was OK—I unplugged the phones so I wouldn't get yet another phone call at 6:00 a.m. I slept restlessly until about 7:30.

I just went to the bank to open an account for Linda's medical fund. I didn't want to be there, yet I tried to act civilized, despite the fact that I was not even completely dressed (not that the bank teller could tell) and that my allergies were so flared I felt barely human. The woman cheerfully complained of a cold and her toddler who was "so busy" and running her ragged while her husband was at the beach with his buddies from the fire department. She didn't seem annoyed by any of it. (I kept thinking I've got to wash my hands when I get home and I wonder which one of the fireman was her husband so I could bust his chops next time I saw him.) I don't think I have ever been as good-natured as she seemed to be. I liked being around her.

When we were finished I drove home. The windshield washer went back and forth, back and forth, giving the impression of on and off rain instead of the downpour we were getting, and the world seemed forest-dark and cleansed from rain, and I thought about how stressed I felt and how I hated having my brain overloaded because of stress and how did people in a war zone do it? And I was filled with compassion, again, for the Iraqi people and saddened that my tax dollars had paid for their horror, their terror. My stress was nothing compared with their, or with my mother's, for that matter.

May they all know peace soon.

Now I'm home again. Tired. I'll go meditate, maybe sleep.

May You Beeeee in Peace.

(Poppy photos by moi.) 0 comments

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All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.