Saturday, February 21, 2015

It Just Is

#writeingrief Round 2
Day 4-

I couldn't write this yesterday. I felt frozen. I couldn't even sit down and write into feeling frozen. Maybe I was just being lazy.

So today I am forcing myself to sit with this prompt. 

I was instantly hesitant when I read that we are supposed to go into this seeking comfort. I don't wanna. Why? Just because. No reason. I don't know. I'm scared. I can't think of anything. It's too much pressure. What do you expect? 

And of course there you have it. A list of excuses. Empty ones. And no one expects anything. Except that I just show up to these words. I don't even have to write into them if I can't. I can just read the prompt and leave it at that. 

What is it about choosing weather that has me incapable of stringing a few words together? Maybe it's that weather feels like a stranger lately. Winter means running from the house to the car to the school to the car to the house. And an occasional walk when the windchill isn't too ridiculous. 

And those walks in the winter weather are refreshing. It's the air. Crisp to the point of painful some days. But breathing in the frozen air helps me center somehow. The road under my feet and stretched in front of my path guides me, propels me forward even when I don't wanna go for a walk. (I don't wanna.) 

"What kind of comfort do you find in such impartial Nature?" -Megan Devine

Spending a few minutes out in the weather reminds me that nature does not care whether I am pissed or sad or happy or confused. Nature doesn't care about my emotions and doesn't judge. It just is. It just is hot and sunny. It just is cloudy. It just is a blue-sky, cold-ass day. It just is. What I bring to it matters not at all. Why is this comforting? Maybe it's the reliability that you get what you get. I can tell Nature that I'm over winter. I could request a blizzard. And each would go ignored. The weather could come along and claim an entire town but leave one tulip standing. So I'm comforted by the reliability of my lack of control over the weather. I have no idea what to make of that.

Death: You get what you get. (I just wrote that and would like to delete it.)