November 19, 2010

What I've Been Doing

For two months I've been silent -- not writing, not reading, not doing anything that I always do.  I have, in fact, been doing a lot of things that I've never done.  I'm not sure if it's an effort to ignore the parade of dead people that stand in a circle around me as if waiting for me to do something.

Five people in three years, five family members gone forever. For two months I've felt like they were waiting for me to say something about them, but I couldn't. And it seemed rude to write about anything else without acknowledging their importance in this world or their importance to me.

And so it was easier to write about nothing.

Instead I bought a spinning wheel and started making yarn.  I sit for hours and watch the fibers pull themselves into the wheel and twist themselves into something beautiful. It's a soothing addiction, mindless, peaceful and it seems somehow productive and important.

The dead sit patiently by while I spin as if they understand that I'm about to wake up -- in just a while it seems like I will be back to my old self. We are getting used to each other, I guess, and I can think of them without feeling sad and paralyzed.

I guess that is "healing".