The life you save, may be your own
I hit the ground running on so many different fronts lately that I found myself moving at psycho nano speed and wasn’t sure how to bring it all back down to earth again. The first problem, was my meditation – a ritual that I had performed daily – got interrupted by a puppy. Sorry, but Stella wakes me at 4am and 5am and then 6am and at first I was just staying up and staggering through my day, and then I was going back to sleep and having wild dreams. And now I’m just trying to cope by eliminating expectations of normalcy.
So yesterday, I went to bed at 8PM and slept till the first wake up 4am and then back to sleep and slept till the next wake up at 5am but didn’t get up and pushed it to 6am when I had to. I dreamed that Arnold Schwarzenegger was trying to kill a friend of mine who kept jumping on my back to find safety.
On Mother’s Day, Tin and I drove across the lake to change the flowers on my mother’s grave and see my family for lunch. However, the leisurely day I had envisioned shifted when Monday of last week, I began helping a friend organize a Mother’s Day rally in Congo Square for the kidnapped Nigerian girls. So my day on Mother’s Day started at 5am with me instead on WDSU talking about the rally that was to happen in the afternoon.
And my trip across the lake started earlier and ended with a rushed visit to my mom’s gravesite and lunch with family that was also cut too short. But I figure my mom is used to it – I used to do drive by visits when she was alive and she always knew me to be “busy.” And busy I am. As I drove back across Lake Ponchartrain a blinding thunderstorm let loose from the black sky and caused me to drive white-knuckled across the Causeway for all 26 miles.
Meanwhile, Tin snored in his car seat. I remembered when on returning from my mom’s burial in 2009, the sun had burst forth from the black skies and created a moment of revelation. That was not happening.
But we arrived at the rally as the rain cleared, and people of all stripes came out to chant and sing and pray with us. The next day, the video was released of the girls, so there was a feeling that something had shifted in the world from our collective energy.
After the rally, a motley crew rallied at the Spirit House while I made Asian coleslaw and rice noodles with shrimp in peanut sauce. A friend asked me if I ever regret or resent cooking and having people over like I do. Is it too much?
No, I don’t ever regret or resent it. I thrive on it. I would do it more, if I had the stamina. But as it is, I wore myself out last week.
Between multiple projects, parenting a young boy, organizing a rally at the eleventh hour, and showing up for a radio interview, a television interview, and behind the scenes coordination, I feel this way about it all: I wish I could have done more.
And yet, I can’t. So what was missing from the whole puzzle was taking care of me. And so that is how I came to be in bed at 8PM last night. I got my eight hours but I had to give my night to get them.
Some photo memories of the day:
[Photo by Malik Yassir]
[Photo by Malik Yassir]
[Photo by Malik Yassir]
[Photo by Malik Yassir]