wallow.

THE sickness has me. It creeps into my blood and withers me away. Sometimes it feels like I'll never be the person I once was. My energy will be gone forever, and coffee will never have the same effect. I'll eat a bagel with cream cheese and want to give it away like a mother bird gives food to her baby. Except my baby will be the toilet. It's a horrible sickness and I don't wish it upon anyone. Someone told me to stop wallowing the other day. No, that's fine. I like being a wallowing warbler. I can't drink a beer, I can't go to Daytona Beach this weekend to film red snapper, I have to shove chalky pills the size of my thumbnail down my throat. Wallowing warbler wallowing warbler. 

It's hard to be the strong person people expect you to be. 

Tonight I want pizza. And since a beer is out of the question, perhaps a root beer. And I'll watch some HGTV. Are you going to Love It? Or are you going to List It? In my brain is a box of ideas for the house I'll one day live in. There will be a breakfast nook with large bay windows (except there will be no bay, there will be meadows, and mountains). That is where I will drink my coffee and read a book, or just look outside and think about my mortgage payment. The nook will be bright and the kitchen will be comfortable. There will only be one floor, and it will have an open concept design. There will be wood floors and light-colored walls and shaggy throw rugs, and two affectionate cats. A porch will greet me when I enter my house, and another porch will welcome me when I want to see the view of my mountains and my meadows. Except they won't really be MY mountains. 

When I was little, around autumn, my mother would put on a tape of Native American flute music. The flute was a wooden one, and it sounded sad, hopeful, longing... The windows were open, and my mother lit some incense, and I'd be transported back in time. While my mother swept the kitchen and wiped down the counters, I folded laundry, or more likely stretched out on the couch and closed my eyes. There were no late payments, or utility bills. There'd be a river and a circle of ancestors, and we played the flute, and danced with feathers in our hair. And then we'd prepare the maize, and tell stories of even more ancient times. And my bare feet were dirt covered and clean at the same time. My clothes were airy and my hair was braided. And if ever I opened my eyes, my mother would bring me some tea, and we'd stretch out on the couch together and she'd hold my feet. It kind of makes me sad, that those kinds of autumns are over.