merging and menopause, imagination steeped and stirred

from the sea (5) –  merging and menopause  by freda karpf

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf

 “It is always the unseen that most deeply stirs our imagination, and so it is with waves. The largest and most awe-inspiring waves of the ocean are invisible; they move on their mysterious course far down in the hidden depths of the sea, rolling ponderously and unceasingly.”  Rachel Carson

steeping 

          “The world then and now.  There is the case of my desire.  Some memories bring it up into my consciousness like demitasse through the cube.  I can hardly handle the rush.  I add cream that floats on the dark night of caffeine. Everything has a blurred edge.  Nothing seems to come round to the shapes I’m familiar with.  Warm colors draw me out.  When I was younger I loved the cool tones. Blues and greens.  I still love them but I seem to resonate with the warmer ones now.  My tastes change with the seasons; the seasons change with my years. Floating on a waveless sea.  The blue green sea with the warm orange sun and the flashes of silver and gold bouncing on the water.   Maybe it’s not a person that I want to embrace.  Everything is so diffused.  Borders and boundaries are lines of interest and no longer definitions.  Now and then my desire peaks like a wave.  I want to embrace everything.  The matrix is liquid.  My thoughts are hands without instruments.  I cannot hold onto anything.  My background emerges.  The sea is my mother.  The child flows from the mother like a fish.  The swimming is good.  I’m in the ocean.  This is Menopause.  What would a fish do?” 

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     Why should tea be the only thing allowed to steep?  Why can’t we accept and trust that all of us, not just the beans or the dinner we put up in the slow cooker is allowed to evolve slowly to delicious?  The recipe calls to add a thyme bundle. The process allows it to move through its changes, warmed through the ceramic pot, over hours, developing and integrating, ripening and unfolding layers of flavors that tease the mind to stillness.

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     Mornings when Mrs. Scattergood had to cross the small bridge to her home she felt welcomed by the bowl of the salt marsh.  The kingfisher often up above on the wires. She’d see the curve around which the sun was moving to meet her glance. This was home.  It pulled on her as she left and welcomed her as she returned. This was where she felt most right and in place. 

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     Walking through summer.  The susurrus of sounds on the beach.  The past blended with the sounds and the curl of waves. Sounds in summer held in the air where you can taste them. Little time for reflection and no need; past summers layered in the rising heat.

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     The colors of the day melt into each other.  The willingness to be open and vulnerable surfaces.  Is there anything besides this openness?  Language breaks down when you focus on the sounds.  Meanings are loosed from their attachment to words.  Mrs. Scattergood could not help merging with everything. 

~

This is M, M means menopause.