pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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SWEEPING THE GARDEN/RUBBING OFF THE FUR

I rarely remember my dreams, but awoke yesterday still dreaming. Got in the shower and reminded myself to write down the identities of the three women in my dream, but I failed to do so and now can only remember that I was sleeping with all three and that one of them was Musicgrrl.

My three lovers and I were seated in a curved restaurant banquette, eating. This was not an awkward meal however. Then, at some point in the dream, I was alone and pulling long thorns and splintery dowels out of the soles of my feet, and, every time I pulled one out, a new tip broke through my skin and I had to remove another one.

Weird dream. It's close to Easter, so I'm tempted to Weird dream. It's close to Easter, so I'm tempted to say this was a persecution dream, but the dowels were in my feet long ways, not piercing them. And there was no blood.

•

I've been beating myself up because I forgot to pay a bill. A dumb oversight and entirely my fault. It got buried.

My commitments are overwhelming me. I feel depressed and stuck and exposed all at the same time, and am letting situations control me instead of me either controlling them, And I've been avoiding commitments that feel overwhelming for the past week, which just makes matters worse.

So here's my getting unstuck plan: Today, I am going to make a list of my most pressing commitments, organize them by importance/deadline, then just start at the top and work my way down—hopefully without looking at what's farther down the list.

Maybe this is a lesson in feeling compassion for my father—who became so overwhelmed by his life that he just sat in place throwing his anger and frustration out at the world—and a lesson for me in recognizing that, while I might land in an overwhelming place before I notice it, I still have the power to act.

Margery Williams said somewhere that you only become real when your fur has been rubbed off.

If that's the case, then I have been standing here skinned alive for all the world to see for some time now and I just hate it

I am not comfortable being exposed as vulnerable and fragile and fallible, as someone who can't just move through the world at high speeds accomplishing what I need to accomplish with at least flashes of brilliance—which I can sometimes do for long periods when I am balanced—and I want my protective fur and competence back now, goddamnit

•

Hung Tzu-ch'eng said

if the mind is not overlaid with wind and waves, you will always be living among blue mountains and green trees. If your nature has the creative force of Nature itself, wherever you may go, you will see fishes leaping and geese flying.

Today I'm posting a poem for me.

Sweeping the Garden
(Olga Broumas)

for Deborah Haynes

Slowly learning again to love
ourselves working. Paul Èluard

said the body
is that part of the soul
perceptible by the five senses. To love
the body to love its work
to love the hand that praises both to praise
the body and to love the soul
that dreams and wakes us back alive
against the slothful odds: fatigue
depression loneliness
the perishable still recognition—
what needs

be done. Sweep the garden, any size
said the roshi. Sweeping sweeping

alone as the garden grows
large or small. Any song
sung working the garden brings
up from sand gravel soil through
straw bamboo wood and less
tangible elements Power
song for the hands Healing
song for the senses what can
and cannot be perceived
of the soul.

9:14 a.m. - 2005-03-30

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