A CUP OF YIN, A DOSE OF YANG

[sooZen]

Have to say this last weekend and up to yesterday have been both exhilarating and on the other hand, frustrating. A yin-yang (“where opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world”) passage of days where one moment I was all smiles and the next I was having a “pity party” and wishing I was not on this planet. A lot of it has to do with my level of pain and frustration and/or the people (and their attitudes of love and happiness) that were/are around me.

I was really fortunate to be in the company of some very enlightened beings, old souls and shiny people on the one hand. On the other, talking with my selves (the inner Susan’s) and then dealing with the day to day happenings concerning the goings on in our house was not so great.

For instance DS son Nate looming at my bedroom door, “My bottom hurts!” says he.
Says me, “Quit sitting around on it so much all day long!”
“I can’t sleep” says he to which I respond, “Neither can I because YOU woke me up!”
All of which takes place after he awakens me at 2 am in the morning and me in a groggy state. I was having a delightful dream after all… So a pain pill (ibuprofen) and some arnica (it was really his hip not his bottom) sent him back to bed.

“I have to pee!” says the old dog Yogi (he makes his wishes pretty clear) because when you are awakened at predawn hours, he being old and deaf and a somewhat confused elder dog, he just needed to pee. And besides, wasn’t I up and walking around in the dark? It must be time to get up! So that entails taking him out into the front yard (because I don’t want him tripping and falling down the long flight of back steps) and of course, Chang wants to go too which means I have to be awake and aware of wandering cats which Chang would like to kill. Of course. Sleep is as far away now as my sweet dream. Gone, poof!

Then there was those old souls, women who enlightened me, at a party I attended. They too had long relationships with the same mates who were driving them nuts, grown children who still made them crazy, and a great deal of wisdom to impart in dealing with those issues. I didn’t feel so alone, so isolated in my pain and frustrations. One of them was in far worse physical shape than me and she was dealing as best she could with a twinkle in her eye. I got to laugh and share some insider secrets, girl gossip. It was lovely and very helpful. A feeling of gratefulness for having such friends at a perfect time washed over me until…yin becomes yang.

A back spasm ended my party. So intense, I really wondered if I was having a heart attack or angina. Nope, just the SOS (same old shit) that plagues my days and nights on occasion (more than I would like.) We had to leave because I couldn’t move, couldn’t go back outside to the music, the dancing, the laughter. That yin-yang effect!

Yesterday evening we went out to dinner with an old friend that is forced to leave her home, her dogs, her friends and her job in order to go and take care of her elder mother who is now frail and needy. We were honored that she thought of us, wanted us to be there to say a formal “goodbye” until we meet again. Her life has not been easy but she has a ready laugh and we, her and I, have shared many tears and smiles on my back deck over the years.

Things happen, things we have absolutely no control over. It happens and is all a part of our lessons in this lifetime, what we are here to learn or at least, that is my take on it. Yin-yang ups and downs, shadows and light, good and bad, happy and sad punctuates my days.

Truthfully, there are those days where, despite my friends, my loves, my gifts, my feeling is I just want to exit stage left. And then I come home from a lovely evening out, my mate and best friend has been solicitous as he can, but a day where my sarcasm and stridency rules my roost and then… I find something to laugh at.

I retreated to my refuge on the now darkened deck to have a smoke and some iced water (because I needed the smoke and it has been hotter than all heck, hence the water) and there on my table, next to my wonderful metal rocking chair, where my beautiful ceramic incense bowl sits, I see what looks like all hell has broken loose. My colored glass and polished pebbles that were in the bowl are scattered all over the place and the sand that was in the bottom of the bowl is now all mixed up with the remaining glass pebbles and the incense butts are thrown hither and yon.

I have a teenager in my yard, a curved bill thrasher (whom we call Moses) has been at it once again. (I know his parents well but they confine their antics to the garden.) He has already disfigured two of Cecil’s beautiful specimen cactus that sit on a rack outside, digging into the sides of them. I took care of that with a wire cage but then he, whilst we were out, decided that those pretty rocks needed transformation. Thrashers love pretties, especially stones in pots or my new mosaic (as yet ungrouted area) I worked so hard and painfully on, with its polished stones, was a temptation (I thwarted him there too finally.)

Flinging stones, throwing stuff, digging dirt out of knotholes on the deck is Moses’ specialty. I have to laugh. I can outsmart most humans but dealing with this naughty bird, who thinks our yard is his playground, has been a challenge. He outsmarts me every time just when I think I have the solution. No! Do not think you can outsmart a dinosaur… You can’t. I tried scolding him, reasoning with him to no avail. He sits on the rail looking at me, cocking his head side to side like he is listening and then proceeds to wreak havoc when I am away! But, his antics keep me going, keep my mind sharp, keep the darkness at bay. The yin-yang effect…

Today is wash day for me (Nate will have to deal or his Dad will…with “Nate Day.” I am not.) And I am going to have to clean up Moses’s mess, pick up and sift out the rocks from the sand and refill my incense holder. I already have an idea but I am sure Nate and Moses will find a way to make that just a dream. Hah! Yin-yang away my dears…

S.E.A. Lee
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
6:22 am

[saw]

when I first staring writing in earnest somehow I got the notion that I needed to be clever

it was only when it dawned on me that honesty trumps wordplay, that I began to like my writing

this piece drips with honest reflection, journals the comings and goings of thoughts in a real life that isn't sugar-coated for the audience's favor....it stands up to scrutiny with authenticity

not to mention it is well written, and carries the theme along nicely for the ride

[sooZen]

Why thank ye kind sir! That swelled me up a bit... Hah!