Wake to This Place

Today seems to be well worth waking to. I love the fall, if you couldn't tell by now, my darlings. The unicorn meat eating cats are happier than usual. The window of opportunity is open, and the mice are fat from the harvest. The field becomes more gold, day by day, and the wood trembles, its breath moves the ground beneath its roots.

I have visited the forest and the power that resides there many times over the weekend. My life changes with the seasons, indeed, with my mental health diagnoses, with each moment that passes. I think of bipolar, ptsd and borderline disorders as nature based. To me, they respond to what happens in my life, and the chemicals of my body. But more, they also respond to what happens in the natural world...like sneezing is triggered at the season of pollen and moulting.

So my breath moves the ground beneath my roots. I do not fall away from what centers my life, but the center itself changes to reflect the outside world. My core values do not change, but what I value in my life is changing. And, despite what our ancestral memories tell us, change is good.

So I wake today, with a new tree in the forest, a new person in my life. A new friendship is carefully being planted. What kind will I plant? A sturdy but colorfilled maple? Or the improbably and lovely tree called a 'Harry Lauder Walking Stick'?

I know you think I am crazy, and I am, technically. The start of a new friendship is always troubled by my diagnoses; how do you tell someone you are 'mentally ill'? Thank all that is, that I have only to point to my blog as evidence of my insanity...

And how to tell someone, "It's ok. It's not me, it's my head," when so often my head drags my body and my mouth along with it? But I have found a new friend that accepts me as I am, without sharing all of my diagnoses as well. It's so easy to share friendships with someone who has the same diagnoses that I do, or who is in the same groups that I am. It's quite extraordinary when I form a friendship outside of those boundaries...

So I wake to this morning, under the stars, with a cool night behind me. I am fortunate that I have several friendships outside of my diagnoses, to share life with. And I don't mean to minimize the friendships that have a common center as its basis. Sticking to any kind of program, or group, builds a common bond with humanity that is the core of life as a herd animal, a social being. Humans need their own pack to run with, or they die. One of the most unfortunate and killing effects of mental 'illness' is its ability to rob us of our commonality. It isolates us.

And now, I don't have time to tell you how fresh the air feels, or how lovely the stars look. I don't have time to tell you how so very good the coffee tastes, this far from South America, where it is grown. I lack time to tell you of the friendships that stand, like the cat statues, that stare back at me in wonder, in this place I share with you, my darlings.