This Morning, This Moment in Time

So I ate a piece of cake in my sleep last night. Apparently, I saved a bite for the dog, and then didn't give it to him, cause it's on the plate on my bedside table. My therapist said try a glass of water instead of eating, but how do I get that through to my hind brain?

The dying drunk who calls me, called me from the hospital yesterday. I answered, because I didn't recognize the number. That sounds cruel, I know, but as I said, I cannot help this guy as he dies. I have held my parent's hands while they died, and it's not in me to do this for this schizophrenic. I feel helpless, so all I did was listen. This guy is going fast. Jail 2 weeks ago, and now in the hospital because he cannot keep anything down. It will happen to me, if I drink.

So that's death.

I get older and closer to it, but I see death as welcoming, because I believe in an afterlife. It's of great comfort to me. And if there is nothing but oblivion after, then I won't know, will I?

Anyway, I don't want to focus on death, but I can feel the wings of it, as it goes by. It is the ultimate mystery. There is majesty, and mystery, and power there. Something electrical, for lack of a better word, that lives in a wood, and comes out to play...

It does not visit the field, but stays in the wood, or sits with us. And I can hear it's wings beat, when I embrace a person or animal dying. And, as I said, I feel the wind of it, when I listen to this guy.

I don't feel brilliant today, but I feel as if I had some good sleep, which is so important to us. The window is open, and the cats watch the bugs come in. Only the loud ones are attracted to the light in the apartment. There is a loud one buzzing the light on the nightstand.

I let the dog out a while ago, against my better judgement. No barking in the Burbs, remember? I knew he would bark eventually, and he did, and I called him in, and told him what a good boy he is. There is a lot of wildlife going on out there, outside the door. Deer eat the grass in the lawn, and rabbits are legion. I would bark, too, if that were my druthers.

I went to the foodbank yesterday, and scored an ungodly amount of produce. I also met a woman I wish well. Both she and her husband work, but their water got cut off, in this heat, too. It was a choice between the electricity, or the water, and they chose to pay the electric. In the richest country on earth, and both of them working. I fervently wish her well, and recommend her to the Presence this morning.

I am taking neurontin, which is specific for bipolar. But I take it for nerve pain. I dunno if it happens to have anti-depressant qualities, or it is the relief from head pain but I feel really good this morning. Today feels like reality. Today feels like an adventure. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a sign of mania, and borderline. But it's better than feeling the opposite.

And I don't feel like a drink and I don't want to cut, and today I will be good about my diet, cause I hear death in the wind, and I don't want a stroke or a heart attack. It's amazing how exposure to death can have that effect on us, isn't it?

And so I write, and I know that I am a small blip in time, in the history of writing, but I like what I write most of the time, and I am grateful to have readers. I have friends, and I have family, and I have a job to do, with my art. I am grateful not to want to drink today. I am grateful that cutting is the furthest thing from my mind. And I hold onto life like I have nothing better to do, because I like living today. I will call the dying drunk back today, because someone should listen while he dies, even if I cannot hold his hand.

Sometimes life is a royal baby that waits to be born, and sometimes it is a dying drunk. Sometimes it is a woman, who sits in a hot trailer, and works so her water will come back on. Sometimes it is Georgia, who spends another morning with me, and grooms calmly. And if my heart breaks because death is close, and birth is close, and a cat grooms placidly, then that is my life.

I miss my Mother this morning and wish I could call her and tell her about my life today. Instead, I will call my friends, Dark Star and Storm, and tell them I feel real today. I will tell them I hear death, and that I love them.

And I will tell them how, inescapably, and indescribably, I love you.