UNPACKING©
By Linda Lee
Greene, December 31, 2018
It
is one of those days when a pale light in the distance informs that dawn has
arrived, but the light doesn’t quite break through the cloud cover and icy rain
well enough to properly proclaim itself as “dawn.” I refuse to switch on lamps just yet because
I want to experience the quality of this dark light—to feel its gauzy softness.
I go so far as to turn the thermostat of my furnace to the OFF position and to
open the sliding glass door to my patio to the sound of the rain dancing on its
roof. A train clacks by on frigid tracks; an airplane soars in the frozen Ohio sky,
and my defrosting heart rises to these spilling words that I hold in my mind
until I am released from this nature’s magic to reach for my laptop. I tilt
back in my recliner, wrap my legs and fuzzy-slippered feet in a warm afghan,
and know that I am a woman content.
In
a half-hour or so, I will gather in the palm of my left hand a collection of
pills that I will gulp down with my second cup of coffee, medications to aid
and/or protect and/or replace my bodily functions. This is the morning routine
of my 75 years old self, a woman enthralled with where I have been and where I
am going despite the fact that I have begun to solicit recommendations from my girlfriends
of my same age as to the best brand of hearing aids.
All
that aside, tugging at my consciousness is the fact that it is taking me days
to unpack from my trip to Florida whereby key members of my family and I sat
round-the-clock vigils for more than two weeks at the bedside of my dying
youngest sibling. The unpacking is taking me so long to accomplish not because
there is so much to put away, but because my rooms have been a milky haze that have
sheltered but failed to console me since my return. One cannot go through such
a thing and not emerge stunned, shocked, ones essence for a time blank with
trauma as stark as erased pages in a book. The contours are reappearing now, though,
even in this morning’s reluctant light, and their shapes are welcoming me and showing
me how to continue to drop back into my everyday life.
Once
my enchantment with this murky morning is satisfied, my morning maintenance
completed, and my lamps finally ignited, I will finish my unpacking. This is a
good day for me to begin to unpack 2018, as well, to go into those dark and
musty drawers and closets, and into my heart and mind, and to clear them of
outworn and unnecessary, and especially of harmful, things. I have learned well
in my many years of life that the Universe adores empty spaces because they are
canvasses on which It brings forth new life, new resources, new ideas, new
events. I am hungry for such things.
My
hope is that by way of this miraculous forum of social media, you, my cyber
friends, and I will go on helping one another to grow and prosper and learn and
feel through all the days of 2019. Your friendship helps me so much to get
through some lonely days and nights, and contributes greatly to my contentment—and
I thank you.
Happy
New Year to you, one and all!
***
To date, Linda Lee Greene has authored five novels: “Jesus
Gandhi Oma Mae Adams” (http://amzn.to/VazHFG); “Guardians and
Other Angels” (http://goo.gl/imUwKO); “Rooster
Tale” (http://goo.gl/vNq32g); and “Cradle of the
Serpent” (http://amzn.to/VazHFG), which
was designated as a finalist in the 2018 American Fiction Awards Competition.
It was also awarded a 5 Star Review by Readers’ Favorites. Scheduled for
release in early 2019, her latest novel titled “A Chance at the Moon” will be available in soft cover and eBook at Amazon.com. An extensive exhibition of Greene’s artwork can be viewed
at www.gallery-llgreene.com.
: