growing a rosehip…

Up early this morning, but it is dark as dusk as I type on the porch sofa. The rain just came and is pattering on the tin roof. To wake early (6:30am) is unusual for me, especially in recent days when I’ve usually spent the night before with hot flashes and classic on-and-off of covers and finding sleep again, over and over. But last night was uneventful, a steady rest, and I wanted to get up when some nearby logging woke me up.

I got a replay of yesterday’s Wimbledon going on the apple tv, noticed it started quickly and felt some joyous anticipation…perhaps this would be the day I could watch more than a constantly interrupted hour or so? Our rural internet leaves much to be desired, and we have to employ many a trick to watch what we do. So I left the replay to “steep” for-hopefully-later watching, shut the windows against the sound of logging and began to imagine the post I would write…

About how far I felt I had come since last Tuesday found me in the emergency center, getting a cat scan, learning that I had just experienced my first (and hopefully last) panic attack. But in the same way that my elation over knowing that it wasn’t a stroke or brain tumor we were dealing with was short-lived (tho’ always there), so was my Wimbledon joy, as the loading quickly ended and the dreaded spinning wheel appeared. Half an hour ago my post would have been all optimism…about the logging, the state of the world, the state of me. Then it was all frustration and a bit of fear. Now it is somewhere in between. Me and the weather (and the world?) have much in common these days.

And in the same way we learn over the years what we need to provision ourselves with to weather the storms, I’ve been learning about menopause and anxiety. My newly decaffeinated days and evenings without wine don’t bring me as much as pleasure as my Van Gogh-sunflower-scattered umbrella. Nor do the bottles of St. John’s wort, kava kava and yellow dock tinctures lined up on the kitchen shelf make me smile like my pink and white rain boots. Tho’ maybe they do, in a slower, less immediate way. That is the hope, anyway. All this and the gentle yoga sequences, pranayama breathing and so many other little ways to shift are helping greatly.

I’ve been able to arrange my life to be spending most days very close to home, with fewer expectations (although all of my good ideas are still in the works, just a much slower works!). And in the same way I am grateful to be on my porch, watching the rain fall and not preparing for a slippery drive to work, I am so grateful to be mostly at home while I adjust to my new conditions. And making the most of it, in a sense. Using my storms to block out the world off and on and pay closer attention to what my inner world might need to tell me. Just as this heavy rain has blocked out the always-distressing sound of logging and I was able to pull my thoughts together to write.

Perhaps after I dot this post with photographs from the last few days, I will find that some Wimbledon has loaded, maybe even with sound…what a glory that would be! And I will watch and listen and  cut and paste as I make my small “book of well-being” (more at Wisteria & Sunshine) to help me through my rosehip days with more ease, less having to remember every little detail that makes them better. If not…well…I will find other patches of light. And gifts in the storms…

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