vertigo

The Friday my uncle died my mom called at 8:03 in the morning, but I didn't anwer. It was one of those things where as soon as the numbers pop into caller ID you know what the call is. And I was making peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches for the lunch bags and watching the clock and trying to herd my kids toward their shoes and coats and the door. School day. Close to go time. 8:03 a.m. T minus seven minutes and counting.

My mom would say, I'm sure it's her not my dad, and she'd tell me Uncle Morty died. His kidneys were long-gone kaput and he'd just broken his hip a couple weeks earlier. Fell. He came through the surgery up and down, and he was looking better last I heard on Facebook. When the phone rang I didn't think about any of that, not consciously anyway. Just, Uncle Morty died.

This was in the kitchen of the new house, where I couldn't quite get myself settled. Three months in and still boxes of books on the dining room floor, pictures in boxes in the TV room. No motivation to fix any of it.

That's the bitch about moving. It's the one thing in life that does not get easier with practice. Amelia, my seven-year-old, is all the time chanting practice makes progress, practice makes progress, practice makes progress. But for moving, bullshit.

In 22 years I've moved 21 times. Counting only places I stayed longer than a month or worked or payed rent. Twenty-one dwellings, eight cities, five states, two countries. Longest uninterupted stay, three years. Average duration of stay, I'd rather not know.

This last one, though.

Fuck.

I'm still spinning.

Totally unexpected. Blind-sided me good.

Even after three months, I say, I can't find my footing.

And I say, I can't find my rhythm.

And, I can't get my balance.

I say, I don't feel solid ground benenth me.

And, I say, I feel almost dizzy with it.

And, I don't know what's different about this time but I'm just freefloating through space, out there without an anchor.


When the phone rang, I let it go to voice mail.


to be continued...

*image lifted from: http://citinite.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/vertigo.jpg

moving day

Back into the bare familiar
Of the unfamiliar
Baby blue and the textured walls
Humming fan humming and the day we walked
Into here, strangers home and looked
without even seeing
doorjams
and all the space around doorknobs
already marked
greaseprint tracks of I don't know who's life
all that living left smeared on the walls
sweat
it’s better not to know what
these walls know

wide as the air

Rumi kicked my ass at the i-ching this morning. Guess that's as good a place as any to open this new space. My morning game. Picked up The Essential Rumi from the top of a pile of books in the top box in pile of boxes in the never ending ruble of my living room, where all good boxes go to live and die and hopefully, maybe, one day get unpacked and integrated into the larger ruble of my life.

Opened the end of my question wide and cut the pages with my thumb.

What do I most need to learn right now, I said.

Page 70.

Bismillah

It's a habbit of yours to walk slowly.
You hold a grudge for years.
With such heaviness, how can you be modest?
With such attachments, do you expect to arrive anywhere?

Be wide as the air to learn a secret.
Right now you're equal portions clay,
and water, thick mud.

Abraham learned how the sun and moon and stars all set.
He said, No longer will I try to assign partners for God.

You are so weak. Give up to grace.
The ocean takes care of each wave
till it gets to shore.
You need more help than you know.
You're trying to live your life in open scaffolding.

Say Bismillah, In the name of God
as the priest does with a knife when he offers an animal.

Bismillah your old self
to find your real name.

Thanks, Mr. Rumi. Anything else?