I was lying in bed with my mom crying last night. I only got in because I figured it had been awhile since she had human lying on touch, and she said she always told the families of patients at her convalescent center to not be afraid to get in bed with your people. They're your people.
My mom had seemed so distant and off lately and I worry the next day is the day she flies off to the universe's open arms on a boat ride I don't have a ticket for, so I got in bed but it is so sad when your mom is broken but her body is here, this body you loved who loved you.
I told B later, I just miss my mom. I miss someone who is hollow and just there for me that I can demand attention from and who will always scratch my back. You need a person you can take for granted who will always be there for you like 911. That is such a luxury.
When I was crying I had to make friends with the crying why does crying feel like the stripper of feelings. Like you feel like you shouldn't look but someone is taking off their clothes and the loud music makes you think it's a party. Crying isn't wanting to be shushed. It's just wiper fluid. It needs to squeak out and be replaced.
Anyway once my crying snuffled out I was lying there feeling marooned, with my mom's bony beautiful hand on my arm, I thought there's no bright spot then right away I saw the jungle.
That same day, in the morning I had been ankle deep in the muddy leafy jungle on a new trail with Mags and Jane. Every year the rain changes all the trails down in the creek, wiping out old familiar ones and making new ones to hack through. I was on an old one that used to be easy and now it was full of tsunami-ed branches and water. I got to the big lake we used to call the Jungle Cruise like at disneyland and there was a huge log like the size of a huge log blocking the lake and the normal way across. I sat on Mags, holding Jane on the rope, and we looked at that log. It looked way too massive to step over, and I was afraid if Mags got halfway over and it was too tall for her stomach we'd be stuck there forever like on a fat horse teeter totter. I had to find another way.
I wanted to get through it because on the other side up the hill is a sunny lengthy lofty arena where I could set loose Jane to have the biggest run of her young life since I got her last October. It's so close.
We turned around and I saw to the side someone had cut away some branches through the leafy forest but it still looked all brambly. I was riding one horse and ponying another barge of a horse and I wasn't sure I could wrangle all three of us through an unknown puzzle of trees.
I got off Mags and judged their moods to see if I could let go of their ropes to go do some recon around these trees to see if Mags and Jane and I could wrestle around in here without death, broken legs or decapitation.
This is the exact spot that leapt into my head in bed with a mom all cried on. This tangled path of bush, water, trapped air, leaves, horses happy foraging wild plants, ropes dropped, me on the ground momentarily stumped looking for a new safe path.
I always want someone to be there to show me the way but I am always it seems in shorts with scraped up legs, breaking all the branches to make the way for ourselves.
Horses are such good reasons to fight for path clarity, like physically while you fight, they stand there eating and trusting you while you hack a path for the three of you.
This is the jumbled happy watery place that reminded me of my worth when I was sad with my mom. My brain nudged me with my mom (creatorofme), in my arms. Leg draped over hers, balanced precariously on the too small hospital bed like Brendan Fraser in The Whale. Which was just as good as Encino Man.
In the sad with her there beached on her bed was the watery jungle and the leaves all reaching for me remember this? This was today too
I led Mags through the jagged hole I had foraged, and Jane dutifully followed, psyched to see and feel everything. There were some little creek inlets to cross and I almost got on but first time through a tight space, better safely with wet boots on the ground. Maggie will go wherever I point her. If she's a bitch it's just because she's picky who she's friends with. She trusts me. Even though it's been ten years, I'm still learning to trust her. People take alot longer to overcome wariness than horses. We get around to the other side of the hidden lake and the fat log. I stare at it. We made it. I find a way to climb back on to the horse without scratching my face off on branches and we keep going toward the arena up ahead through the thicket where it waits up the hill in the sunshine.
As we're clomping through the water all the anxiety of the brain mechanics it required to safely maneuver brush trees animals and the fear your body holds of Can We Make It Through flakes down my body into the water washing away and I feel it going and I think ok I'm definitely not coming back this way.
And then after the arena I go back exactly the same way. Because what are you talking about, I made a path now.
