its midnight...outside a few cars pass by...i looked out the dark window and saw my face looking in at me...i opened the window...breathed in some crisp cold air...down the street a dog barks...the streetlights hang like paper lanterns...
earlier friday morning i sat on an examination table...white sheet over my lower half...young intern coming in...she knew me from two years ago she said...the hysterectomy..."yeah that was a tough one...you had a close call...nearly bled out on the table"...and i heard her words and i remember i was in bad shape but who knew...close call?...couple of units of blood and extra days in the hospital...the grit it took to get well...pushing myself...cant stay in bed...get up and get at it...every day pushing myself...and at the studio...knowing i shouldnt climb that ladder to put something up...but i did any way...pushing and willing myself well...and at the same time in my studio all i could think about sometimes was how i wish my life would get fixed somehow...that it would all just get better...
so i am sitting there and she is talking...they dont know why i still have fatigue...they do know i dont have cancer...three options for the ovary issue but a simple procedure might work...she fires questions at me...yes i am having hot flashes...no it doesnt hurt when i have intercourse (because i dont have intercourse...did she read the part that says patient is a lesbian...should i tell her...but she is on to the next question)...yes i take my iron pill...no i dont want to try physical therapy...i do shavasna and light yoga...and on and on the questions and then the exam and we are done...come back in four weeks...see where "we" are at then...me? i will still not be having intercourse...
as i am pulling on my clothes i stop...outside a crow is flying with a bit of string in its beak...i watch it land on a wire and drop the string...it looked down but didnt bother to retrieve it...and then it struck me...this was the same room i sat in two years ago...when they told me what was going to happen...i forgot that...i forgot the view...but it came back...i had looked out the window then...after pulling on my clothes like now...thinking of all those times i wanted children...i remember holding my belly...the uterus getting bigger from the cysts...i felt this great letting go this time...not with any sadness...just as if i were that crow dropping a bit of string...
i stood at the window of my apartment tonight...sore from having my belly pushed on...thinking about that string falling...it is that easy...to let go of something and then fly away...
you can let go of someone you wanted to be with for the rest of your life...you can let go of a job...you can let go of a place you call home...you can let go of fear...you can let go of heart ache...you can let go of resentment...it falls away...and then you can find something else to hold onto....or not...maybe it is just knowing you can lift yourself up and fly across the landscape...a single crow without a family...able to find a way to parts still unknown...
there is peace tonight...i am going to let myself have a good long sleep...i will make a pot of coffee in the morning...i will clean my apartment and work on my painting...keeping it simple and quiet for now...so i can hear myself...
i am so full of love...so blessed...and so profoundly grateful for my strong wings...
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