For a long time, because of trying to heal PTSD, and opening up all the pain I have been dissociated from, I was unable to enjoy the beauty of Nature as I had when I was younger. \u00a0Things are changing. \u00a0I wrote this in my journal on Sunday, May 7<\/p>\n
Crazy weather.\u00a0 Wind and sun and rain, flying clouds and blue sky.\u00a0 I watched a cloud, with its tendrils dissolving and reforming, as it passed below another cloud.\u00a0 Up on GG with Mocha, there was wind and fog, glimpses of blue sky.\u00a0 Coming back from Littleton there was a huge black cloudbank across the middle of the sky, odd tendrils flowing down the mountains.\u00a0 At sunset there were bars of cloud behind the tall pines.\u00a0 First the alternation of pale yellow and dark grey-blue layers, then the lower one turns to gold and the upper one to pink.\u00a0 Sitting here on the couch, turning my head to look out the window and watch the colors change.\u00a0 I turn my head now and there\u2019s a brilliant rainbow bisecting the space between the tree trunks.<\/p>\n
Read something on the internet about growth through trauma.\u00a0 Stories of people who had been diagnosed with cancer or lost a spouse, and when they had got through their grieving process, they were better able to appreciate \u201cthe preciousness of life.\u201d\u00a0 I so envy them.\u00a0 The beauty of yesterday\u2019s wind and clouds touched my heart, but it was also painful, like a sharp dagger in an open wound.\u00a0 Life does not feel \u201cprecious\u201d to me.\u00a0 It feels alien and difficult and painful.\u00a0 Elizabeth talked about feeling \u201cjoy\u201d when dancing paneurhythmy.\u00a0 When did I last feel joy?\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember.\u00a0 Maybe Winter Solstice at Stanstead<\/a>.\u00a0 I worry that I\u2019m somehow refusing to feel joy.\u00a0 Someone talking about different responses to trauma gave the example of two holocaust survivors.\u00a0 One said how can you feel happy again when such terrible things can happen.\u00a0 The other one said how can you not enjoy every little bit of good since such terrible things have happened.\u00a0 The thing is, I can recognize things as good, and want to enjoy them, but am not able to experience the joy.\u00a0 I remember how much better I felt when Dr. Rankin told me that the chemistry of depression destroys the ability to enjoy.<\/p>\n
Well, there is enjoying Mocha\u2019s joy when she\u2019s free to run.\u00a0 And pain that I can\u2019t let her do it more often.<\/p>\n
I saw the waxing gibbous moon looking almost transparent against the blue sky.\u00a0 I heard a thrush recently, and of course the daffodils are blooming.\u00a0 The shadbush are in flower along the Gale, both shad and cherry along the roadsides.\u00a0 It\u2019s a moment of great tenderness, this just beginning of spring.\u00a0 It\u2019s piercing, this moment.\u00a0 In a few days, the moon will wane, the blossoms fall and the trees put on their wall of solid green.\u00a0 The thrush song is rarer now, as their winter habitat is destroyed.\u00a0 I remember at Bickford Hill, I had planted daffodils in a place Dana wanted bulldozed for the pond.\u00a0 So I moved them.\u00a0 I remember them coming up the next spring and feeling that painful joy \u201cAfter the war, here you are!\u201d\u00a0 I remember Agatha Christie\u2019s \u201cO brave monkey puzzle\u201d to the tree that was still living, in a cramped space, in the new subdivision that had been built in the place where she grew up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Marie Howe: \u201cIt hurts to be present.\u201d
\nKrista: \u201cI experience poetry to hurt …\u00a0 If I don\u2019t feel strong enough or don\u2019t feel vulnerable enough I can\u2019t read it.\u201d
\nMarie: \u201cWe\u2019re afraid of silence.\u201d\u00a0 Silence at the heart of everything
\n\u201cTo live in the world transparently would be a relief.\u201d
\nWhat art does is break our hearts open so they can\u2019t stay closed. \u00a0\u00a0[from interview at On Being<\/a>]<\/p>\nFor the moment of Moon, Thrush and Daffodil<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For a long time, because of trying to heal PTSD, and opening up all the pain I have been dissociated from, I was unable to enjoy the beauty of Nature as I had when I was younger. \u00a0Things are changing. … Continue reading