Rock flour

Waters swirl. The senses take them in. All the senses. The senses seem satisfied, even if somewhat inundated.  

The sound – deafening rushing in the canyons, against stony mountain walls, roaring waterfalls – contrasting the soft soothing ripples, the gentle lapping waves in lakes.
The taste of the cold blue glacier water, an aquamarine stream at the mouth of an imposing glacier. I bend down in awe, greedily filling our bottles, wishing I could have somehow carried a barrel. 

The touch – so cold, so pure, so fierce. I look at the swirly walls of canyons. Water that has created swirls in the stone, so easily, so effortlessly, like fingers running through sand.

The sight – brilliant colors set against imposing mountains and glaciers - the aquamarines, the blues, the turquoises, the milky-whites… My breath stops several times, as we turn a corner in the mountains, or suddenly come face to face with the waters, startled by the iridescence. 

The waters of the Canadian Rockies…

The glacier tour guide explains the colors. Rock flour, he tells us, is the fine silt caused by glacial erosion and grinding of rocks. Glaciers grind up the stone. Fiercely, minutely, permanently. This rock flour is then either carried by wind or flows into meltwater. It is through this glacial milk and sedimentation, that the ground up stone lends color to the waters.

And what resplendent colors. Turquoise, aquamarine, blues, greens, whites… so beautiful… so entwined in their interactions with their surroundings, they take on their colors. Permanently.

The intertwining of nature…  

glacier spring

So, if we are part of nature, are there rock flours in our surroundings? Ground up in our being?  

What color/ colors are we? Where do we get these colors from? Who/what is the source of our colors? Perhaps there are puddles of colors inside us – some dazzling, other dark. Some origins that we know of, others unknown.   

Can we choose which rock flours we want to allow to be part of us? And which we would rather not? And if they must be, maybe they can remain no more than a tiny puddle…

For staring at the waters in the Rockies, one thing is apparent - rock flours can lead to much beauty… hopefully it can be so - with humans, as well…

Hospital notes...

As a species, I believe we are completely screwed up. I am almost certain of it. Or perhaps I should not generalize. For many of you have your act together. But yet…

The reason for this conclusion? Scribbles in a small diary I find from last year. Written from a hospital bed.

My breath stops when I see the shaky, barely legible scribbles. My hand trembles as I turn pages.

Why would I even want to write? I ask myself. With all the tubes and drains poking out from different parts of my body, making me look like a Martian octopus? (And yes, I know exactly what a Martian octopus look like).

Why would I want to write? I ask myself. When everything seemed so painful and awful and discouraging? When I thought I could be dying (only for a few days).

Now I rarely reread journal entries. They are moments in time and moments pass. But I am curious. I am also apprehensive, and nervous to go down that path again.

I turn the pages. There is not a whole lot to read. The entries are short, the writing barely legible, the dates as mixed up and confused as my head. I find several entries for July 15, 2015 and one right after for June 13. Hmm… So I ready myself to read a bunch of incoherent gibberish nonsense.

I hold my breath again. To my surprise, it is not nonsense. It feels raw and vulnerable. I am able to read only a few entries.

I close my eyes and the book and put it away.

A few days later, I am in a funk. I look for the book and read a couple other entries. I feel better. The entries are raw, no doubt, but surprisingly, neither melancholic nor depressing.

There is a strange unnatural will to step out of the mess.

Yes. When I am in a funk, I reach out to a spectacularly difficult month in my life to draw inspiration. Now if that isn’t screwed up, what is?

Is it just human nature to hold it together in a crisis? But what about after? Is it easier to hold it together for a month and a half, and give it the fight you got? But what about after?

For difficult times don’t come with specific start and end dates, you see. What about for when the crisis still festers, but is a low-grade one. What does one do then? Why can’t I find journal entries then? (or maybe they are there, I literally, just can’t find them).

Perhaps it is a function of writing. For writing moves us towards the light. Okay, that may sound a little woo woo. What I mean, is that even if we start in a dark place, perhaps writing moves us away from that place to a more hopeful one, maybe just a teeny weeny more hopeful, but hopeful, nonetheless.

I spend a month and a half in the hospital. Doing the math, approximately, 1080 hours. Of these, the writing would be only a handful. The rest I probably spend glaring, scowling, being scared, staring foolishly…

Yet I go to those notes written in a minuscule minority of the time spent there.  

For they give me hope that in our worst times, we may be our better versions.

***

Here are a few... barely legible... written through the cloud of pain and drugs... 

Pain. The pudeur* of pain. A stench it ?? through a life normal. Sucking out fragrance, oozing out dishearten?? From every cell within. Smells of failure. Smells of lost dreams. Of hopes unfulfilled. 

How then do we remember it to be effacing. That hopes and optimism survive – even if they take on a sad face? How do we know to not allow that sad face to become our permanent face?   

(*pudeur - French. I know! Must be the pain meds)  

Puffy so puffy – I feel I could burst – just like the story of the green toad. The toad wants to show its pride – the bloating is showing me my humility.

It’s showing me the need to stay soft and relaxed and never bloat – for no good comes out of a good bloat. That is apparent…

This refers to a story about a vain toad who puffs up to show how big he can be -- but bursts. Ouch! 

… yes that if I put one foot in front of the other foot and keep moving in the direction away from the negativity…

For those not quite initiated or educated in art…. That is probably a picture of me on the beach with a sombrero possibly holding a glass of something-with-an-umbrella-in-it.

8/1/15
More blood tonight for this vampire. Here’s praying that this kind soul and stranger who donated blood – helps me feel stronger and healthier…

It’s night time in the ward again. Dread climbs, apprehension climbs, irritability climbs…. (griping about the night nurses – some were great, some - I was rather scared of).

...Yes, as night looms, a certain gloom looms over. But tonight I’m determined to see things different. I want to let go of the cynicism and negativity inside me that makes me gnarly – I know I’m in terrible pain. But perhaps, just for… ?? I will think of the night nurses as my friends – in the spirit of ??

It feels somewhat difficult to read and type up these notes. But there are so many more that truly surprise me. 

If only there was some way to extract the soul of the moment and hold on to it.