what to expect when you're expecting

Lightning that illuminates the dark sky, peals of cracking thunder and torrential rain lingers overhead. Today it hailed. Twice. Hailstones smacked against every surface with a gleeful vengance. Currently, the rain is less sinister, but heavy. I wonder if it's meant to cleanse, to drown out the city, to nourish the plants, to remind me that no matter how I feel, the world is still moving toward something, still operating in its own time.

I should be doing fifteen other things. I should be writing other things. But here I am. I don't even know what I want to say. Mostly I wish that I could take all the things I've done and produce something tangible to stand on when there's nothing there. I thought I had that, but of course, when you are comfortable, you are certain of many things. It's not til you're tested that you realize you're all hot air.

I'm amazed that I haven't cried at all this week. I haven't shed wallowing tears. I haven't wept silently. I have gotten teary-eyed, for sure, but then they receded, as if the breaking point would be tears, as if the dam would burst if one came through.

Maybe it's the yoga. In class, last Thursday, our teacher lit a tealight and placed it in a holder in the center of the room on a yoga brick (used for support in poses). He instructed us to stare at the light in the dark. He asked us to resist blinking, unless it was necessary. He warned us that our eyes might water, but not to stop staring at the flame. I happened to be sitting very close, and my eyes rained. His gentle voice crept along. Tears are the way the eyes are cleansed, he spoke, over and over in my mind. After class, I felt a bliss that I could not shake for hours, so quiet and steady and firm. Maybe that is how I managed to make it through this week without letting one tear fall.

The astonishing thing about the yoga is that my mind is quiet. There are very few times in my life when my observer mode is turned off. I can hardly stand to ignore a thing. I am constantly on alert. I make it my business to know what is going on around me, even if I have to make up stories to make sense of it all. It is what I am good at. In yoga, I find myself paying more attention to my body than my head and what its seeing and saying about what its seeing. For some reason, this makes me very happy. I wouldn't want it that way all the time, but for that hour and a half, my brain gets to rest and I like that.

I would just like to thank you all very much. Connecting through words in this informal and impersonal medium is the best I can come up with and for now, it is faster than vying to see you all in person. And somehow, I hope my words linger longer in your mind than the ones that are simply spoken and passed between us.

Here's to taking care of yourself and finding the answers to all the questions that collapse our worlds. At least we're trying to answer them.