Sick

Perspective. T Says...

He sits naked on the toilet, folded at the waist, heaving, hurling and gagging into a plastic liner inside an oversized trash can. Shit runs down his leg and now my arms as he reaches up between retching to hand me his shit dripping underwear, stuck inside his shorts.


It is 3:42 a.m. and this is maybe the twelfth, thirteenth time he's puked since 10 last evening, the first time catching him so suddenly he could only stand from the couch and silently spew puke all over the living room rug, couch, dog and floor.  


I pull my sweaty t-shirt over my mouth and nose, breathe through it and for an instant I am thankful for my allergies and inability to smell most of this, but then it punches me hard and I gag, my own stomach suddenly hurtling upward.


I take his clothes and dash for the utility sink down the hall and as the water echoes on the bottom of the sink I hear him puke again.  Again.  


I rinse shit down the drain between breaths and throw the pile of clothes in the washer, wet a towel to clean his legs and another for his face.  Sweat drips between my boobs, down my back, fills my eyebrows.  All I can smell is puke and then shit. Shit and then puke.


Back in the bathroom I frantically pull Clorox wipes from their container and wipe: the walls, floor, toilet.  He sits there silent now, the calm after the storm maybe, and then suddenly lurches forward, grabs the trash can, retches again.  I wipe his forehead, his back and he clings to the toilet seat and hurls. 


A single tear slides down his cheek.  I trace it with my finger, wipe his forehead again.  His stomach stops its hurtling  and he gazes up at me: I'm so sorry, momma.


A few seconds, minutes pass, me on my knees on the hardwood floor, him naked on the toilet, still hanging on. He looks so pale, so tired. His voice is quiet and distant and he says:

I have never felt more sorry in my whole life than I do right now for the people with the cancer, mom. The ones with the chemo, they puke like this every single day.

Mmmm Hmmm.

*first spied it here.

What's Your Story?

I am cleaning some things up around here, so please be patient while I fill my bucket with a fresh pail o' water. There are some AMAZING things happening around these parts, I've just not had ample time to write them down.

In the meantime...I leave you with a thought...that came from my yoga teacher training, and showed up on another trainee's blog serendipitously: WHAT STORY ARE YOU STUCK IN TODAY?

Here's a hint: the correct answer is NOT: why I'm not stuck in ANY story.

Because that would be dishonest and a bunch of baloney.

Get quiet. Be honest.

We all carry junk, we all need cleaned out from time to time. We ALL could use a good checking in with ourselves and lose at least one (or eighty) of our stories.

You know, the one about how so-and-so hates your guts from such-and-such that happened so long ago that blah, blah, blah? Or how he/she wronged me by whatever and however and therefore the world is flat and the sky is falling (chicken little) and I NEEEEEED to tell you all the ways and reasons for which and how I've been wronged?

Yeah, that one. Lose it. Just get rid of it. All the drama. All the feelings. "The Story."

The Past.
Make them all go away. They are, after all, passed.

Now, what's left?

Absolutely nothing. Beautiful nothing.

Can you even tell the story if you lose "the story?" Probably not.

Because all that lingers there is space.
Space....and sweet possibility.

And to that can I have an Amen? Amen.

Music City

Q7

Cool biking threads. Even better people. Corn-fed yokels to boot.

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