On Basil

Basil on my windowsill. I love how the light hits and plays with the leaves, makes them more green in places and bright. They make me feel how rainbows make me feel. I have been so frantic, spread thin, that I haven’t practiced my piano piece as much as I should have, and now it is insecure and anemic.

I just lit candles.

What I am right now:
1) teacher – I come alive when I’m with a student
2) seeker – applying for a searching for jobs, looking for houses with Chris
3) poet – collecting words and maybe stories in my brain, incubating them (I hope)
4) I absorb & smile when the sun is out
5) I say no to most offers or requests

My room is lived-in and dusty and there are rings on the windowsill, from mugs or the basil jar or the tiny flower pot. I’m glad I’m not moving away from Rochester. I can stay in familiarity, even when my classes are over and I’m not having stimulating intellectual discussions every day.

I think it might be time to move my bed off the floor, so I can practice sitting down at my keyboard.

My phone tempts me sitting on the counter. Messages from Chris and, randomly an ex boyfriend, just this evening.

I am a woman but my gender doesn’t define me. We are all people and gender is fluid. I can ignore the position women are in in society, the positions I put myself in during my teen and early college years. But she is me – my past is my own past, not a disconnected chunk of something. I can forgive. I can – can I? Can I notice my reactions before they happen? So I don’t “yell” (or as I think of it, snap) at Chris?

Have I ever been able to do that? Notice my reactions? I think when I was young. I may have not snapped, but instead felt sad or defeated before. Not made my needs known. I had no idea that you could tell people what you needed and then they might consider giving that to you. Now, I just feel this hot pressure and I feel it immediately lash out at whatever external causes the pressure. It’s like they’re not human anymore (the person who triggered me), but a threat, a force, a cold hard shoe pressing on my body. My empathy flees and my body says “ALERT. FIGHT. BAD.”

I think empathy is the thing I wish I had more of right now:
My mother’s hurt makes me feel uncomfortable,
Chris’ hurt makes me feel guilty,
My friends’ hurt makes me feel angry.

Empathy exists for my students, though, and somethings (often?) others.

I am getting tired and tired and this didn’t help much. So scattered. I should start practicing, so I can get this piece learned well & be musical.

April 4, 2019