Slow

I have spent the past week feeling sorry for myself again. Being a hermit. Sleeping instead of doing anything, surfing the internet at work. The words from Ara in his blog, The Oasis of my Soul:

"... The process is slow, painstaking, but time is present. What else is there but time? These moments I am still allowed to breathe in and out with the good fortune of a certain ability to think. Sometimes feeling as all is stagnant, but it is not. The gears never stop, they turn and turn so smoothly that only when new images come up I am aware of their constant movements."

And the words of John Wells in his blog, The Field Lab, where he talks about feeling like its time to 'get back into the game'. Except that I don't know where the game went. Or it's new rules. Or where I fit.

On Wednesday I go back to Nashville for a week. My Dad is still alive and in the nursing home. Mom chronicles the signs his body is shutting down. She is told by a recent widow the signs that mean 'there's about 2 weeks left at that point' and tells me that those signs aren't there yet. She has sold his lift chair at the apartment, and even his electric scooter. He is bed bound now. They have even stopped taking him to a doctor since it involves using an ambulance to get him there. Comfort is the word, keep him comfortable.

My house needs attention. The yard is wild, and I just got a water bill for $120.00 for last month. This means probably that a toilet is running constantly. I can't get hold of anyone with a key other than Mom, and she says it's storming there so I told her not to bother. I'll pay the bill, and keep trying to get someone else on the phone. When I'm back I will try to get everything closed out and the house put up for sale.

I feel closed in by so little of my life here with me in the West, and closed in by so much left undone back in Nashville. Things will change irrevocably in the next 6 months, or sooner. My Dad will pass, my house will sell. I will come to some resolution on living out here. For now I feel trapped in Jello. I can move, but I can't see clearly and movement seems difficult.