Progression
For breakfast? I had . . . jeez. (Guess memory is the first thing to go.) Hang
on, tip of my tongue . . .
It’s, um . . . Monday. Monday the . . . What? (Holy shit, what the hell?)
Can’t be Thursday already!
Where am I? Where is home? (So scared, so fucking scared, so fucking—)
WHERE AM I?
Flowers? And kisses! How kind. (But why?) And you are?
—Risa Aratyr
finding joy
East windows frame a clear sky and new leaves on our walnut tree. A squirrel creeps to the end of a branch which dips and swings. My husband adds trombone sound effects and I laugh as the squirrel scampers up, his nails brushing like a snare on the bark.
Today I choose joy—not obligation, nor worries, nor tomorrow, only now.
I adjust lights to a soft gold matching the morning sun: Round, festive lanterns for my party of one. Coffee and chicory mix with hot milk sprinkled with cinnamon, ginger, and tumeric. I sit on a cushion on the floor near the window to the deck. Caffeine and endorphins find everything good and peaceful in a gold and green world where squirrels climb black walnut trees and eat spring flowers, yet save enough hard nuts to grow in the fall, which the squirrels will saw open with their sharp teeth.
I spread a mat in the soft light.
If yoga finds one’s “sun and moon areas,” I have many moons: Tight hamstrings in downward dog; muscles in my neck cable-tense from whiplash in a car accident decades ago; the foot which wobbles in tree pose from a broken bone three years ago; my lower back gently loosening during triangle pose; the I-T band stretching with a sigh. Sun areas? Sturdy thighs holding me upright in warrior one. Flexible shoulders from years of swimming. Shavasana lays me on my back, and my moon areas sing.
I toast the only bagel beneath the broiler. Cream cheese, lox, baby greens—a perfect balance of softness and crunch. I eat chips for dessert.
—Anne Ross
The Crone's Words 