Coo At You

Everything feels so fragile. Me. especially. My stomach has been hurting for a month, since Christmas Eve, to be exact. 


It's acid reflux, someone said.
Stress?
Maybe it's an ulcer.
Oh, lots of women our age start to get that.


My doctor didn't have an answer, so I'm taking a daily pill while spooning creamy, minty over-the-counter liquid into my mouth, hoping for relief from the burning. I have an appointment with a gastro-guy on Tuesday. Doctors scare me. They always want to run tests. I hate tests.


What is it that I can't stomach these days?


Our car died; money is tight. I need work.
Throngs of Egyptians are being tear-gassed.
A woman at Claire's bus stop told me her husband lost his job a year ago. Very hard, Betsy, she said. I had no idea.
Received an email from my brother this morning; our childhood friend, Sue, is dead after a long battle with cancer. She's left behind her fifteen year old daughter, Anna. Anna's father died a few years back. Sue would've been fifty-one on Valentine's Day. 


"Not feeling too good," I said to Michael.
"This is when the spiritual practice needs to kick in," he said.
I am not expecting to hear this from my husband, standing in the driveway, but it feels helpful, healing; the way he cups my face in his hands and looks into my eyes, kindly. 


I feel flayed to the suffering in the world. I pray, say affirmations, take pills called Mood Fix that I found at the health food store. I'm too sponge-like. I need to armor up, I think. I've had it with the constant loss and change and uncertainty. With people packing guns at supermarkets. But armoring up isn't the answer. Dis-armoring, is more like it, surrender. Okay, hands up. Heart open.

Sitting here in front of my big window, snow falling, dog whimpering, I feel this: I/we must practice kindness, over and over, treating everyone like a newborn baby, cooing at the sweetness, the lightness. Treat yourself that way too...

Coo at you.