I drive a lot.
I am a home care nurse.
‘Nough said.
I put in over 100 miles in one day a few weekends ago.
Impressive, eh?
Sometimes when I feel the tension creeping into my shoulders and I find myself holding my breath, I take this little sachet filled with lavender and hold it up to the blowing vent. And all of a sudden I can take a deep breath in and I let my shoulders fall back into place. This is my stress therapy.
Oh, the simple ways to manage stress by simply rubbing some lavender buds between my fingers and letting the vents waft the oily perfume through me and over me.
I feel more permeable, like a fine silk mesh that is unable to keep out the weariness etched on the face of a woman watching her husband die slowly, the suffering of a man as he chooses to have toxic chemicals infused into his veins and radiation beams to his neck bringing on the worst sun burn inside and out that you could ever imagine, grief turned to bitterness as a woman comes to terms with her barrenness, loneliness etched into the curves of a cachexic man curled up in bed, rage and anger flashed in front of a child. I have gone from being a heavy weight tweed to a fine, almost transparent piece of antique linen. Stuff hurts more. Life feels more sharp. Images penetrate like old, rusty push pins through my aging linen of a heart.
The other night I came home to buckets and buckets of fresh cut lilac. I love Spring! LoAnn had gone out “picking”, if you catch my drift. I have been cultivating my own lilac bushes, but, alas they have not given one bloom yet. Their still babies (grinning-me).
LoAnn did some pounding with a hammer on their stems and plunged them into hot water which is supposed to preserve their blooms. Later, I trimmed them all down filling every vase I have in the house, from the tall, elegant crystal vases to every last bud vase. Lilacs on the kitchen window sill, the kitchen nook table, lovely purple blooms on my desk, in the bathrooms, next to my bed, on the radiator next to my orchids (competing for attention), on the slender table in the dining room, on the small table in the living room with the lamp above casting perfect light on the lavender shades of aromatic petals. And, oh the smell. A house full of lilac is what I had!
I have been a LOST fan for the last few years, after I spent an entire summer watching Season 1-3 and taking a break from “World of Warcrack”. I remember trying to watch the show because everyone said it was “sooooo good” but found it to be super slow and very hard to follow; I guess I felt kind of lost.
Well, once you get started, you can’t stop with that show. They were right when they said it is sooooo good. You know I am busy and short on time when I am three episodes behind in my LOST viewing. I was reminiscing about my favorite scene of all time in this show. It comes in Season 3, Episode 10 when we have been soaking long and hard in the hopeless and helpless situation the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 have found themselves in. It seems like they will never get off the island or even last long enough without killing each other.
Hurley (the big dude) is one of those affectionate, worm your way into your heart, endearing sorts of fellows. He reminds me of one of my buds in college, Andy B. He gets this crazy idea when he finds an abandoned baby blue VW van to somehow get it running. He drags a few of his buddies with him to work on it with him. They end up finding really old beer in the back of the van along with a more than rotting skeleton that Sawyer nicknames Skeletor (makes me giggle). The bus seems like a.n.o.t.h.e.r. hopeless case on this hopeless island.
It all of a sudden occurs to Hurley that there is one last way to get this thing running, but it’s crazy–even Sawyer thinks it’s crazy. They are going to push the van down this huge hill and pop the clutch at the last moment hoping to jump start it. It seems ridiculous and a more probable rabbit trail the show will lead us down when they accidentally fall into some sort of time traveling pit. Up until this point in the show, whether you knew it or not, you most likely have been holding your breath, unable to let your guard down for this gang.
So when Hurley and Charlie jump into this old van and Sawyer and Jin give it one big push and down, down, down it goes, appearing to be out of control and heading right for the big, ugly rocks…we take one final breath in and hold it, hold it, hold it.
And right when it seems there is going to be a crash and there goes a few more characters off the show, the ignition catches and the van is off with the radio blaring an old tune and all is well. “Well, son of a bitch,” says Sawyer, and we enter a bubble of normalcy and all the air leaves our chest and we breathe. We breathe for the first time in a long time.
I so badly wanted to jump in that van with them and cruise around laughing, feeling light, letting normalcy settle in, even if it was for just one small moment. It was a break of sorts from having to wrestle with their current reality. That van ride was a bracketed lapse in time where they didn’t have to look back or wonder what was coming. Everything hopeless about that island was on pause, just for that moment.
I find this scene to be a wonderfully lighthearted and a genuine portrayal of hope…a hope that lets you breathe at last, lets your guard down and screams aloud. And at the end of the day, you can sit on the shore of the beach, sipping your flat and skanky beer and realize everything is going to be all right.