Empty Space

This poem arrived in my e-mailbox today from Poem-a-Day:

Ghostology
by Rebecca Lindenberg

The whistler's
inhale,

the white space
between is

and not
or after a question,

a pause. Nothing
isn't song:
a leaf hatching
from its green shell,

frost whorling
across a windshield,

an open door
opening

Oh Lord, teach me to be thankful for the empty spaces. Help me to hear the silences as a part of the song.

I have never been one to deal well with emptiness. Or, rather, I have never been one to allow much emptiness to exist. On the rare occasion when I have chosen it, allowed emptiness can feel like a blessing.

I've been stiff and sore and oddly fatigued for the last week or two. I ran anyway. I thought maybe more running would make me feel better, more fit, more able to face the apathy and fatigue that seem to be haunting me.  Instead, I felt stiff and sore and sluggish while running more.  So I figured what I really needed was a good yoga class. Power yoga. Turns out that was NOT what I needed. I found myself unable to do some of the positions that I usually can do effortlessly.  Friday evening I was quite sore and quite stiff, so I planned to swim in the morning and see how that went before I planned my run. It was a big concession for me. By Saturday morning I was unable to move and nearly unable to handle the pain. For someone who runs and does triathlons for fun and who gave birth twice (once with pitocin) without pain killers, that's saying something.

And so I took Saturday off--mostly. I am a stay-at-home mom, a type-a, and an exercise addict, so taking a day off never ever happens. But it did. I stayed in bed for most of the morning. I got Gretchen dressed and sent the whole family out to do a Cub Scouts electronics recycling project without me. I slept, off and on, for most of the morning. I went downstairs for lunch, after it was mostly assembled by my husband. I did take Adam to his baseball practice, where I stood around, afraid to sit lest I get stuck and unable to get up. I came home exhausted and lay around some more. I slept through family dinner, which was OK since I had a dinner date with an old friend from high school. We had a delicious dinner followed by chocolate fondue and a walk that blistered up my feet but kept my back fairly limber. I had been invited to go see a friend's band play at a nearby bar, and although I wanted to see my friends there, I decided I had pushed myself far enough and went home to lie down again.

Sunday I marveled at how I had actually let myself off the hook multiple times. Realizing I could not bend enough to get into my swimsuit, I did not exercise. I didn't do the service project. I didn't make any meals or do any laundry or wash any dishes or floors. I considered the possibility that maybe the one who keeps me "on" those "hooks" is me. My husband picked up the slack, and he did it without accusation or complaint. My family did not eat as usual, but no one said anything about it. My friend never accused me of being wimpy for taking 20 seconds to stand up after dinner. The gym never called to ask why I hadn't come to swim. My running friends will be there next week and the week after.... Turns out, the emptiness was lovely. Freeing. And restful.

Of course, I couldn't repeat the performance on Sunday. I considered not going to church, not singing in the choir, but I went anyway. I sat through Adam's first piano recital, of course. I went through with the previously extended invitation to have friends over for pizza. Then when they wanted something other than pizza, I didn't hang myself all that high, but I did boil some pasta and heat up some store-bought pasta sauce. Nothing major. But not quite as empty as Saturday. I was not entirely off the hook.

Monday I woke up in much much worse pain. Saturday I didn't swim because I thought I couldn't bend enough to get into and out of my swimming suit. Monday I didn't swim because I was pretty sure I would get in the water (if I could get in the water, that is) push off the wall, immediately spasm, freak out, and drown. It seemed a poor risk.  Pain or no, I was going to have to be on duty again. Sure enough, while packing Adam’s lunch, I got stuck in the garage when I went to retrieve a juice box. I couldn't pull myself up the step without a railing. My legs wouldn't do it. Later, I cried, then coughed, then spasmed and screamed and hyperventilated, each while continuing the previous occupation. So I called the doctor.

The diagnosis: sprained back. Lumbar and sacroiliac. The treatment: rest.

Suddenly I find myself not only released from all of the activities that take up my time--kettlebell, running, swimming, yoga, laundry, washing floors, gardening, picking up after others, ridding showers of mildew, vacuuming, grocery shopping--but more or less forbidden them. Suddenly, what only days ago was freedom is now prison. A day off is lovely. Watching weeds invade the garden and dust gather and laundry piles grow is stressful. While I probably should take some time more regularly to be still and contemplate, I find that having nothing to do but be still and contemplate feels almost as painful as the injury itself.

To add to the emptiness, yesterday I was finally forced to face the reality that my covenant group is disbanding. I’ve seen it coming for a while. And most people are not coming to book club either. The plate that was, a few weeks ago, frustratingly full now has a fair amount of white space on it. I feel like suddenly most of me is empty space. In one week, I've lost most of my job, my covenant group, my running group, my yoga and kettlebell classes, and my race ambitions. I shouldn't even be sitting here writing, since sitting is one of the things that aggravates my back. I can’t sit and practice my horn or support the weight of it while standing. So what am I to do with all of this life I have?  More than once a day I find myself staring at nothing in particular or drifting off to sleep because the alternative is pondering the possibility or even likelihood that my existence is quite pointless.

Today I walked extra on the way home from preschool, walking being one of the few things I am allowed to do with myself. And, of course, I can think, not that I have that much to think about. I was struck, pretty forcefully, with the sudden understanding that I feel stagnant, stuck.  I recently read the autobiography of Beryl Markham, whose adventurous life in Africa was pretty much as far from mine as conceivable, and was stabbed by her assertion that “A life has to move or it stagnates.  Even this life, I think.  Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.” Ouch.  I’ve been doing the same thing for eight years now.  I have a master’s degree, but I have spent more years doing housework than any other full time pursuit in my life.  Oh, sure, the childcare needs have slowly shifted as my children have become potty trained and able to eat solid food and have begun to have sports practices and homework.  And I do change the details from day to day: what I make for dinner, which load of laundry I do.  It’s like the scene in When Harry Met Sally where Harry questions Sally about her dull recurring sex dream in which a faceless man rips off her clothes and Sally says, “Oh sometimes I change it a little.”  Harry asks how, and she says, “What I’m wearing.”  Should I mention that I have worn pretty much the same clothes every day for the last eight years, varying a bit by season?

I don't want to admit that I've been bored more or less since I quit my job eight years ago, but there it is, whether I like it or not. I love my children. I find raising children challenging to the point of being almost impossible, and I will readily agree with anyone who (condescendingly or sincerely) declares that raising children is the most important thing a person can do, but even so, it doesn't provide the sort of constant intellectual stimulation I seem hardwired to prefer. I need something else.  I have filled up my time with other pursuits to supplement the chores: band, running, triathlons, choir, covenant group, Bible study.  In a time when my body forbids physical activity, and the people who would potentially provide mental stimulation via book club or covenant group or Bible study are too busy with their own lives to concern themselves with my restlessness, I cannot deny that I am, in spite of my full calendar, miserably aimless and empty.  I survive from day to day.  I make the dinner and process the laundry.  Then the next day I make another dinner and wash a different load of laundry.  A dinner that will be eaten and forgotten.  Laundry that will be dirty again in a couple of days.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Indefinitely.  For years.

Oh, I know I should appreciate the blessings I have.  As Warren Zevon would sing, “Poor, poor pitiful me.”  I have not only enough of everything, I have too much.  And I have to wash it.  Boo hoo.  I have the luxury of lounging around whining about existential things while other people are worrying about where to sleep, how to stay warm, and whether or not they will get a meal today.  Those are the kinds of worries that are real, and the kinds of priorities that make lives like mine and Beryl Markham’s seem cushy and arrogant when we want something else.

So I am sidelined.  I’m not going to starve because of it.  Rather, I should probably use this time of forced stillness to figure out which direction I should move when I am able to go again.  When most of the buzz of constant motion is silenced, when all of the activity I use to distract myself from the emptiness is put on hold, what is left?  Who am I underneath the things that I do?  Why am I here?  If, as Lindenberg claims, “Nothing/ isn’t song,” this injury, this perceived emptiness has value.  Eventually, the whistler will exhale.