Saturday, May 05, 2007

Spinning, slowly

I have so much to get done this weekend. All the great apartment cleaning I did before falling and screwing up my left leg has been undone by my inability to hobble around much and this tremendous drowsiness from the painkiller cocktail. I am frighteningly foggy all day from the drugs. My status as a nightowl is temporarily stunted, as I fall asleep around 10 p.m. and sleep in a haze of terrifyingly vivid dreams. Last night's dreams were so creepy, I won't even write about them. If I could mindmeld with Wes Craven or John Carpenter, they could make one hell of a scary flick from the images I crafted in my skull.

Add to this the strange feeling I have, going about my business, blogging away while one of my favorite bloggers is still dealing with the aftermath of a family tragedy. I don't know him, except through his words. I know his name now, but we've never met. And yet, because reading his blog is part of my daily ritual and I have such a fondness for his stories - most of which are about his family, it feels almost inappropriate that I'm continuing to just tell my tales and rant out here. It just doesn't feel completely right. Is there such a thing as Catholic Blogger Guilt?

While I did laundry today (which was a freaking ordeal, just getting down and back up the same stairs that bit me last week) I remembered how I felt when my mother died, and again, when my brother died. I recall feeling this strange anger the morning after, when the sun rose as usual, and cars started and birds sang. Why is the world continuing on as usual when mine stopped spinning altogether? Doesn't the rest of the planet feel the ripples of my pain?

No. Only the small part of the world that mattered to me felt it. The rest of the planet moved on. The sun rose. The sun set. Workers kept commerce in motion. Crops were harvested. Phones rang. People shook hands. People held hands. Couples married. Babies were born. Other people died. And somewhere else - many somewhere elses - people felt their own personal worlds spin out of control and then suddenly stop. While all around them, life flowed by, unknowing, uninterrupted.

My world is moving on - well, hobbling on this week - but it is slowed by the full stop in another's life. I've always found the Internet to be a thing of evil and good. I try to keep myself to the side of good, although I falter. And maybe it is a good thing that, through our blogs, the Internet allows our pain and our joy to ripple out to people who might otherwise never feel it or know it or understand it. A piece of humanity is held firmly in place - an island in the flotsam that clogs and chokes this ocean of ether, for the most part.

The earth rotates. The sun rises. Life moves on. Acute pain and sorrow fades, but lingers for a long while, I know. I don't know if it ever really goes away.

Life moves on.

Sometimes, though, it moves on at a slower pace.

3 comments:

Cyn said...

Beautifully put.

Loracs said...

Very accurate. I just came home from saying good-bye to a friend in ICU. Her partner asked me to pick up her wheelchair. They fought to keep it in ICU for when she got better. Now it was just in the way. Time has come to a near stop for this family.

Merujo said...

I am so very, very sorry to hear about your friend. I wish her a peaceful passage, with loved ones around her.