Drowned World © 2012 Jane Waterman

Today was a tough day… one of those days when the energy is just not there. I had a bad night with little sleep, which didn’t help. Then I got up and did some work in the morning, but headed back to bed after and slept until 3pm. The pain wasn’t acute today, but it was that damned persistent ache in my kidney. I got depressed. In retrospect, I’m lucky I’ve come so far that I can go so often without focussing on that ever-present pain. It never goes away, but varies between a 3 to 8 out of 10. I have a couple of 9 or 10 times, but luckily they don’t seem to stay more than a few hours. I know I slept through some of the pain today, but I don’t feel like I totally dissociated from it. It’s a small victory, but it is one.

I hate waking up so late. It is so against the work ethic my parents instilled in me, and one I’ve lived by for so many years until the last year or so. I actually now let myself go to bed sometimes on days like this, when my body is drained elementally. It’s a double-edged sword though. In my undergrad days, I’d usually be in bed by 9 or 10pm, getting up at 4am or thereabouts to help Mum walk the dog, bake in the shop, do my homework, whatever. It seemed so easy. Now, while I can still get up at those times, it’s usually a couple of hours before I have to collapse again. The best part of the day is the night, the twilight before dawn. When everything is cold and crisp, and stars are the only illumination. I think of how we used to walk with Mum on the clifftops at 4am with this goofy great dane we couldn’t take out any other time. We were house-sitting, and the dog came with the house.

Mum and I looked for the return of Halley’s comet; we saw satellites, we saw the Southern Cross and the two pointers, and a range of constellations dancing around the southern celestial pole. I haven’t seen many of those constellations for 12 years, with the exception of a phone app that shows sky maps. Sometimes I point it in the direction of the Southern Cross and remember when I first became aware of it at 10 years old, out stargazing with my much-loved brother.

Today the rain came. It began to melt the snow. I know I can’t wish for more – I couldn’t live in the prairies with that ever present cold. Maybe it’s a moot point, when I go out so seldom. I don’t have to shovel snow often. The snow felt just right to me. A little bit of magic over the slumbering garden. I couldn’t ask for more.

Mae watched the rain run over the drowned world, and in a trick of light, it looks like one of the little juncos is trapped in the lantern we fill with seed. The rain washed away and all is well – the bird is not trapped. Mae loves the birds and the wild things, like her mother. One day I’ll write a book about how they see things. When I read Opal Whitely’s works, it reminds me so often of my friend Maire, and her daughter, Mae.

I feel a little sadness though, as the drowned world washes away. I was weak and laid down again. I dreamed a little, of some utopian world where I belonged to a group of drifters. We escaped on bicycles we’d put together. I awoke to on my pillow again, hearing water dripping from the leaking gutter, snow overflowing like a waterfall.

I took my blue mood and brought it to the computer to paint this picture. The act of creating and writing is helpful. I still feel the sadness. I feel like I can even cry a bit, which is a release.

I suppose sometimes we need a drowned world to realize when we are submerged and have to come up for air.

Blessings,

Jane