Whatever what is is is what I want
Yesterday in a zoom meeting someone mentioned this poem:
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
~ Galway Kinnell
And then I got in bed, and read, and started falling asleep to words, and then I turned off the light. I pulled the covers up and began settling into a deeper breathing. I welcomed sleep.
And then I woke up two hours later. Some of the what is was circling my brain. Why this, why that? I thought of old wounds. I thought of new wounds. I thought of why I suffer because I am not letting whatever what is is, instead I am wondering why it was.
A friend has been caring for a severely special needs boy whose home life has been a wreck. Another friend wound up in the hospital. Someone I know who lied so many times so long ago continues to reach from beyond with more lies and manipulation.
How do you go to sleep with what is? What is is what I want (to accept) and yet, here I am at 1:13 am wondering why it is so. I began my Thích Nhat Hanh breathing – I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out. I turned to my right side and cradled my pillow. I turned to my left side and now was thinking about things that have not happened that could.
I lay on my back with my fists clenching the covers. Surely, something had stirred the machine, and so now instead of ridding myself of my thoughts, I began unearthing them, looking for the root cause of this disturbance that had flared. I am still reading Jon Fosse’s The Other Name, it’s a tedious book to plow through at night so to treat myself, I read another chapter of Margaret McMullan’s Aftermath Lounge before I got in bed.
When it comes to reading, I’m not monogamous, instead I have two to three books going at any given time.
Was it remembering Katrina as the 20th anniversary looms, was it my friend who is so good and kind and cares so much for children who suffered for a child, is it my son who deserves to have a clearer path to what is rightfully his, where was my tossing and turning coming from?
After an hour, I picked up yet another book, an easy reading romance novel also by my bedside, and distracted myself with the mindless drama of other people so that I might sleep.
I woke hungry for whatever what is and the delight of hearing those words strung together on that call yesterday, a call with others like myself who are also seeking ways out of suffering and into accepting – whatever what is is is what I want.
and capturer of birds in their story