"Monsoon"

Tucson painting by Felix Pasilis
Sunday, June 29, 2008, 7:30 AM

“Monsoon”

Well it’s hard to believe I slept till 7 am and woke up to full daylight. I was late sleeper when I lived in the city but desert makes you want to wake up at dawn. In winter dawn is icy cold and it’s hard to pull yourself away from the soft warm nest of your down quilts. But year-round I am wide awake at dawn and ready to start my day. I think it is funny that I overslept this morning. It just seems funny that I was happily snoozing and dreaming while desert woke up and launched its day. That when I awoke desert was already having its full morning. I was the sleepy-head who arrived late to the morning.

Yesterday was such a strange day. My foot felt a lot better so walking was not such a drama for me, and today I will probably forget about my foot altogether. It was interesting observing the day of getting better. It only lasts one day because the day after that it is better, and you forget a problem ever existed, it is just so utterly natural to feel fine. But the day of getting better, you notice that everything which was hard for you the day before, has now become so much easier. You actually experience a cycle taking its upturn. It brings so many positive thoughts into your mind, because literally with each step you take you think “yesterday it was worse, now it is better.” It restores your confidence in life, that things do get better. I am glad I noticed the day of getting better.

Another odd thing about yesterday is I didn’t get upset. For the whole past week, at some point very late in the afternoon as we neared evening, my mind would start to plotz. It would come out of nowhere. I would start remembering all the bad things which ever happened to me, and start dreading bad things which could happen to me. And get myself totally worked up. This would last for two hours. Then I would calm down, realize all is fine, and actually happily watch an episode of “Andy Griffiths Show” and go peacefully to sleep. My dreams have all been peaceful.

But yesterday that did not happen. Instead of turning my mind into a disaster zone, I happily watched a very long movie about the Temptations, the ups and downs of the young men in that singing group. And when Bill got back from watching his movie at the dollar movie theater on Grand Road, Beanie and I were lying on bed together watching the movie. During the very long commercials I gave him a million pets, which of course he loved.

And Bill told me that “Son of Rambow” turned out not to be a shoot ‘em up kill kill kill movie, but was sensitive story about a little boy in England who hates school and who hates science class and hated his science teacher and who became friends with a boy who was even a badder boy in school, and he became a cartoonist.

And then Bill sat outside in front yard to take the air, and I went back to watching those young men from Detroit and their families and all their ups and downs in singing group, and petting Beanie of course.

And I guess you could say on a symbolic level-- late afternoon, the time when the monsoon arrives, the huge thunderstorm-- yesterday afternoon, the skies remained peaceful and so did my mind. The late afternoon thunderstorm in my mind did not break out. All that tension did not build. It was the reverse. I watched the Temptations and I petted Beanie, and I was overjoyed that Bill got a movie which interested and delighted him, all was well.

I won’t say yesterday was not intense. I feel as if our planet has arrived in some intense pocket of the universe. All I did was have a short swim and come right home and watch tv all day. And yet it feels like it was an intense day. I could say the weather was the emblem of it, but it wasn’t caused by the weather, it was mirrored in the weather, there is a lot of pressure in monsoon season weather. And I guess by intense time, I must mean the energy is intense. It is an intense energy time. Monsoon weather reflects it, it keeps up the pressure and there is no let-up, and I see why this intense energy time is the same. I just have to go with the flow of the intense energy, as I have to go with the flow with monsoon weather pressure. And maybe it would help me be more accepting of this intense energy time, of this period of intensity, if I saw it the way I see monsoon season on the desert. Monsoon season isn’t a joyride, day and night are all about building up the pressure for the monsoon, the thunderstorm which arrives late each afternoon, altho sometimes it comes and sometimes it doesn’t. But let’s be honest, there would be no life on the desert if these life-giving waters did not arrive each summer. LOL you just have to go thru the hell of monsoon season to have the life-giving waters. That is what the hell of monsoon season brings, that is its whole purpose. It restores all the electricity to the earth and brings the life-giving waters. It is the bringer of life. The sun brings the light and warmth, it is the great creator of life, but it has to be watered by the monsoons. It would dry up and wither without it. The monsoons bring the new lease on life, revitalizes it.

And I guess that is what I am going thru now and maybe everyone. We are being revitalized. It aint a picnic, but out with the old, in with the new. I am starting to see how it brings fresh clean slate for new beginning.