Whack-a-mole vs Milkweed and Yarrow

NB... there's no picture of either the game or the herbs because my storage is full... add fixing that to the ongoing whack-a-mole...

Meanwhile, I’ve done a few rants and meanderings here, but haven’t really talked about what I’m doing and thinking for a while. That’s like staying in touch without really staying in touch, although I’ve probably said far too much on facebook over the past year – but when I do that, it’s because I’m falling apart, and it took most of my life to build a real network (it took almost that long to start it)… and because I finally learned that it’s okay to need help, and ask for it, and accept it. More importantly, I learned the right directions to ask.

When I was little, which in some ways was until my mid-forties, I was trained to pretend I didn’t need help (which never worked), to pretend there was no reason. I was trained to gracefully decline assistance. Underneath that, I knew I did, though, so I alternated between flailing and either masking or dissociating.

I’ve worked hard to heal since then. It’s been more than worth it. Healing is cyclical, and sometimes the rugs come out from under you, but sometimes there’s nosedives and the whole world comes out from under you.

The world actually is falling apart under all our feet. Recent news states we are locked in to nearly unsurvivable global temperature increase. Every other aspect of global ecosystem collapse is passing tipping points that ought to be called crashing points. Think of what’s happening in Alberta and California and Siberia and India and the Phillipines and Italy and Peru and so many other places – think of it happening in your town… think of it being normal… for many of you, it already is… and you’re still not being listened to.

Metaphorically, as life collapses, our ways of living fall apart. Our rugs come out from under us.

On a literal level, one of the lesser heard aspects of global ecosystem collapse involves how the thawing icecaps and glaciers are affecting weight distribution on Earth’s tectonic plates, significantly contributing to the radically increasing - and increasingly less predictable - seismic activity all over the world. Between that and the shifting axis, the world truly is coming out from under us.

Nearly a year ago, all the rugs came out from under me. I walked away from a brief but very abusive relationship. I asked for help and was kicked when I was down – also both figuratively and literally: I went to a hospital when I needed care, and instead of listening to me, they didn’t bother consulting information (or me) and instead, operated from wrongful assumptions and wrong information. They assaulted me and had me brutally arrested. It’s a long story, and you’re welcome to find it on facebook but I won’t repeat it here. I’d rather tell the next part of the story.

I haven’t healed much. I’m in severe pain all the time. I can hardly walk, and I’m pretty sure most of you know how important walking is to me. Anxiety and related things are also worse. I lost my sailboat, and my purpose, and my dream, and my hope.

But, I’ve finally been able to begin the official complaint and human rights processes, with much help from my social worker. It’s going to take a long time.

I’ve been able to regain most of my recently acquired belongings and am coming terms with having lost the rest… it’s not the first time. Friends and people I don’t even know have helped with other things we needed. I was even blessed enough to have been able to help a friend in similar circumstances find a home and her feet.

The nurse practitioner who’s been seeing me since just barely before the assault is trying to help with that and the long term issues that led to it. I’m starting to get tests and referrals and whatnot. Severe arthritis, probably compressed nerves, soft tissue damage, intolerances have worsened… waiting for a CT scan, and physio, and therapy, and I forget what else but I’m keeping a list and the NP has a copy. It’s all going to be very slow… I am grateful that Mr Myrtle Sir and I have our own safe place to live. The rent costs too much, but so does everything, for everyone, because capitalism needs to be over. However, it’s tiny place of our own, relatively manageable in terms of my health, and it’s a nice little town. There’s lots of green here – in trees, and people’s ways of thinking.

But I keep doing too much. There’s appointments and paperwork and puppy and people and just trying to keep up with everyday existing. There’s a bunch of herbs and veggies in pots outside which will help very much if I take care of them. There’s cleaning and writing and artwork and sewing which I’m not doing at all. There’s a to-do list that really is longer than my arm and I won’t even try to summarize it and it’s hard to even prioritize it because most of it is overdue.

I’m not hyperbusy accomplishing stuff that matters to the world, like I thought I would be by now... but existing is not living, and I’m playing whack-a-mole instead of growing milkweed and yarrow.

Maybe we all are. We keep trying to whack away what we don’t want instead of growing what we do want (and NEED). A long gone wise person whose name I forget said that you can’t build anything new if you’re focused on taking apart the old. That makes a great deal of sense to me, especially lately while I’m so physically and otherwise depleted that I can’t even pour soup and listen at the same time, let alone whack moles and plant my future at the same time.

We can’t use the same materials, either, or tools. It’s daunting to cut the ties that support us… but we’re rootbound and caught in rusty trellises and strangled by tangled cords, while there is an entire planet that could support all life better.

Today, I read about women in South Korea.

They stopped fighting the patriarchy.

Instead, they stopped being part of it.

If you haven’t yet, take a minute and do. It’s one of the most important things that’s happening in the world.

Screenshot of post at:

https://www.facebook.com/1247358401/videos/178940895085230/

We all need to do this. For everyone. For everything. For any life to continue on this Earth – and because it is the only way to do it.

Part of that means taking care of myself, of ourselves. I have to keep walking away from existing in ways that mean I can’t take care of myself. I know I have a lot of issues, but I’ve also learned a lot about managing them and have opportunity now to – slowly – learn more. I need to let myself do what I need to heal. We all need to do what we need to do to live. We need to ask each other, and listen, and together we need to let go of these slippery slimy rugs that don’t even cover the gaps left by earthquakes, and walk away from what isn’t working. It certainly won’t be easy, and we’ll all get mud and blisters… but we’ll be walking away from things that should not be, and towards things that should, and we’ll be together.

With something that might become hope again,

Ann