As per my core philosophical position and mental-frame’s hard-won design—grief needs an advocate—and so I employ myself to remind and to ask: what else might be, within me, to find? Happiness or anger aren’t all that is there. There might be additional feelings, like grief, present, not just to bear, but to recognize and embrace and so I vote for the all, for the everything
and yet
in watching myself more closely recently, I see that I forget certain other pieces of the whole
I deeply regret
those pieces often fall by the wayside, escape my notice, championing the disavowed shadow, as I do so singularly, I lock my laser focus
perhaps it’s trauma’s memory
that keeps me frozen in defense (or my cultural DNA)
perhaps I can exit my fight-flight brain
long enough to visit, if not fully enter, another kind of sense…example: increased plane noise, of late
that I, most certainly, am not able to abate.
In seeking the source, the answer was revealed: renovation of the middle runway, since May, has pushed ascending flights further eastward to yield more racket in my ‘hood until October…
that is, for me—the noise-tyrannized—not so good.
And, so, plane after plane after plane after plane after plane after plane after plane
motors roar in the sky without nary sixty-two seconds’ cessation…
from where I sit, that’s an imposition creation, flinging me back to those five painful years when my husband and I lived directly under the flight path and cringed every second and shed tears for ourselves and for everyone else stricken…for now, the flights’ eastward steer not quite as close, as utterly overbearing as yesteryears, though trauma recollections do get set into motion.
I shall dial myself into my inclusivity devotion and allay my triggered angst and fears
by listening to the sound around the noise around here…
it’s quiet
there
it’s quiet where the motors don’t go—
there is a huge amount of space—a vast air flow—that cannot be wholly cancelled by these rumbling machines
as long as I perceive it
and I’m sure science would attest—there is quite a bit of space
within ear-shot
that is plane-less.
This is not to deny my experience of this disconcerting din
this, albeit partial, state of the sky with its unrelenting thunderous thwack
but to find a place to cope when I am zapped.
Without the power to eliminate, I call on my power to wrest back my fate from my own default to trauma-orientation.
Yes, gasp and ouch and more ouch is true and, admittedly, also, a part of the whole brew
anger and frustration aren’t all that is there
there are additional feelings and thoughts not just to bear, but to recognize and embrace
like: all quiet contents of the sky cannot be entirely erased
I remind myself of space, with relief, space!
It’s practically infinite.
P.S. Though I will exile myself when the intractably celebrated August war planes commence to shatter my inclusivity logic…at that point, it is hard-pressed to matter
though I shan’t be dissuaded to apply this inclusivity exercise to:
the chickens’ tedious clucking nearby; developers’ serial demolition-construction crews across the street;
intoxicated boaters blasting beats, a stone’s throw away
all a part of the whole, day-to-day
helicopters, routinely swooping directly overhead;
ice cream trucks and their plagiarized bleak redundant tunes I dread;
and also,
the enviable, unbridled laughter of children—
their open-hearted screams, rigorous cries and robust calls—all portions of the unabridged,
the everything, the all!
© 2015 Pamela Sackett