P.M. Zephyr
The gentleness caressed and soothed
Dragging through the day
Rough couple of weeks behind me (I hope) that featured some relatively mild depression that destroyed practically all of my motivation. Sleep rhythms slid into an arrythmia of nearly reversed circadian cycles; exercise so far from my mind as to be forgotten.
Dragging through the day after arising at the crack of noon and trying to sleep; one night, up until 0600. Eating the only bright spot in this mess and even that was oven bulb bright. Realizing that I was making my usual hash of solving this problem, I went to the fundamentals. Prayer. Turning this over to my Lord is, of course, the only sane thing to do.
Prayer. Turning this over
Today was a distinct improvement with getting up still at 10:00 but I’d gotten nine hours of nearly uninterrupted sleep; pee patrol always comes knocking about two to three hours after lying down, so that’s part of the routine.
The best part of the day occurred during my resumption of working out on the deck in the mid-afternoon. I finished a set then leaned against the railing with my attention on the trees around the property. We don’t have any pines close to the house, mostly hardwoods like oaks, water birches, red maple, and pecan.
Suddenly the breeze was upon me
My attention was on the trees to the east of me and I noticed the tops starting to sway back and forth; then the next set of trees also began their wind dance; lastly, those nearest also began to dance. Suddenly, the breeze was upon me swirling around and setting the red maple giving me its shade come alive caressing my neck and arms while drying the sweat. That cooled me better than any liquid could.
A delicious sensation that caused me to close my eyes and drift off to a similar feeling experienced on just such another afternoon two years ago. Sitting on a bench in the cool shade, a bench in the middle of a park by the Savannah River, sipping a coffee and starting to drowse, head nodding, eyes closed, tasting that afternoon zephyr with the skin on my arms and back of my neck.
Opening my eyes today and watching the trees play with the wind, I was launched back in time to when I was about eight or nine years old and an accomplished tree climber. I had no fear of heights, possibly too ignorant of the consequences of a fall. Oh, I’d experienced near disasters, but caught myself just in the nick of time.
Climbing so high in one particular tree that I could wrap my arms and legs around some slender branches and I remember seeing for what seemed a long way off. Our house seemed smaller, the food store up at the main highway clearly visible. I don’t remember what kind of tree; I just remember that it wasn’t a pine, so even the smaller branches near the top seemed safe. The joyous feeling of swaying with that treetop in a breeze much like the one I enjoyed today, invigorating and soothing both at once.
The joyous feeling of swaying with that tree top in a breeze
This moment broke the dreariness of this lock-down. Though we had opted to self-isolate early in the outbreak, it wasn’t a drastic change from normality for my wife and me because we’re homebodies anyway. Assuring myself that this wasn’t so bad only masked the stress, low-level as it was, allowing for the erosion of my ability to resist it. This hindsight is valuable and assists to be more mindful of the onset of a similar stress event. Forewarned is forearmed as some great and wise sage once uttered. And, he’s right!
