"Back at You" glaze oil on canvas 12 x 24 Mid-meditation last evening, I had a thought. Exactly what you're not supposed to have, but no matter. What struck me is that my poor brain seemed to be in the middle of a custody dispute.
Let’s begin with the good angel. My Muse Headband is wonderful. Every day I sit down for twenty minutes of “listening to the boidies,” as I think of it. The biofeedback takes the form of birdsong when my monkey brain goes calm. Progress is being made. I am averaging 82% calm and only 1% active. The only risk, as I see it, is falling into a swoon in the park, where lusty spring songs abound.
But fighting for custody of my Muse-besotted brain is a tendency towards self-inflicted injuries. I walk into low hanging branches if I’m wearing a ball cap (and I always wear a ball cap because blue eyes are really light-sensitive); I occasionally step on a rake; if in a great hurry I have been known to crack my skull on the staircase as I pass under it. I could go on. So let me be clear. I harbour no ill feelings about the mud. Mud is good. It speaks of spring melts and hikes, of tadpoles and germination. Irving Layton called it "fertile muck." Our world has washing machines.
But last week when we returned from a long river walk and started up the ravine path as usual, I executed a face plant in the mud. A perfect three point landing -- my two knees and my nose, to quote Daffy Duck. No damage except to pride and cleanliness. So two days later, when I had lost the trail of two deer wandering around in the park, I headed back to the path, thinking "Just watch the mud at the bottom. " This section was successfully negotiated, and I relaxed.
I was warned at my mother’s knee that letting down your guard tempts fate. Just below the brink of the hill, I began as usual to step over the huge downed white pine that has blocked our path without incident for the last twenty years. This time, however the weight-bearing foot skidded forward and I shot backwards, landing nimbly on my head. On another fallen tree. Log: 1 Z’Anne: 0
An endless twenty-four hours later, after measuring and comparing my pupils’ dilation, not to mention setting the alarm to wake up every two hours to walk and count backwards by sevens from a hundred, we concluded that I would probably live.
So the question remains: what exactly is left under the hat? Am I gaining or losing ground? Jon has threatened to tape me into a hockey helmet. I think I know which conclusion he's come to. I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself.
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