cliodhna’s wave

Water…

…is incredible, it is the fuel of life on this earth, it is the biggest shaper of life on this planet, it gets bigger when it freezes and gets bigger when it gets warmer. It has a ‘skin’ on it which holds it in shape, which is why we have raindrops, rivers, clouds, bubbles, water walking insects. It comes in so many forms and shapes and sizes and functions.

I was in Mazatlan a little while ago and was thinking about water. There is a hurricane on the coast swinging its way around towards Baja California and although the sky is blue and I wear factor forty sun screen the waves are huge rolling in towards the beach. Really huge, no-one is swimming, the jet skies are away in their sheds, the guy who hires the belly boards and surf boards shakes his head when I ask him to hire two ‘Not right now’ he says and points at the red flag flying nearby.

I go into the water and its feels strange and a bit scary. The waves are a wall of water coming towards me, pulling at my legs and pushing me towards shore then dragging me back the other direction as they leave. We have fun for a while jumping around and splashing onto the waves as they smash into us and we marvel at the size of the ones breaking further out. As a contrast the hotel pool is blue and calm and safe and the sun reflects patterns of light from the surface.

I forget sometimes the power of water until I see the it in all its glory and wildness. Rivers that are mere trickles turn into raging torrents during the rainy season and turn city streets into four feet deep unpassable for cars or pedestrians.  I took water for granted growing up in a rainy wet country and the concept of water shortages was alien to me. It rained, it came out of the tap went back to the sea and it rained again. Now living in high desert I see the hills and mountains turn brown again after the rains have gone, the cattle and horses will grow thin again until next year and water will be shipped in from far away reservoirs.

Water is life because we were formed in water and we come from water and it carries us and the moon moves the sea and the water inside us and moves us back and forth and we work to the rhythm of water without even knowing or thinking about it.

So how important it is that we look after our water and keep it clean and pay attention to it. I wrote a post about water ages ago about snowflakes and the memory of water here. We take it so much for granted and it is the fuel of life on this planet, it is life on this planet, it flows in our rivers and seas and underground wells and clouds and rainbows and in the blood of every living thing on this planet.

It’s that time again… buried emotions start surging to the surface, there is an inexplicable need to cry and be vague and irrational and then get annoyed when Paul doesn’t get what I am talking about or doesn’t want to talk about it. Or I say to myself he is only humoring me, he doesn’t really mean anything he says.

Yup, that time. The time when I walk around really wishing someone would piss me off so I could bash them over the head with a frying pan or disembowel them and tie them to a tree, the time when I go to bed and bury my head under the pillow to get away from these thoughts.

I realized that all the emotions that come up with PMT for me are all the emotions I can generally deal with the rest of the month. They annoy me but I have a sense of perspective about them or maybe even, I am not dealing with them properly, that they sit there and wait until they get big enough so I have to do something about them. So once a month is a release valve. The stuff that I am not looking at grows horns and a tail and gets as ornery as a scorpion in a glass jar. Reason goes out the window and everyone else gets the blame.

What was pissing me off this time was the fact that I was waiting for Paul to take care of me, to sort out things in my life and I was feeling trapped. Honestly, when I look at my life and the choices I have made in the past few months I have put myself here in this position. Things I want that I have to be patient until they arrive. I have to get proactive and take care of myself, then I don’t have to be pissed off at him or annoyed at him and we can all be happy!

Interesting thing about PMT is that I am starting to learn to use it as an early warning system. What is annoying me that I am ignoring when I have the energy to keep it buried? That at this time of the month when my defenses are down it all comes out in a rage. It is a time also though that I don’t want to confront these things, I don’t have the perspective about it, I just want to get annoyed about them and bite someone’s head off, I go to bed sometimes and cry. I feel weepy and vague and unfocused and unable to really voice what I am feeling in any way that might make sense to me, let alone to anyone else.

What I do is note what’s going on, make little mental flags and stick them up and try to live with the red ball sitting in my stomach. Curl up or go for a walk. Sometimes I can’t even work because the frustration wants me to do something, anything, to fix what I am feeling, fall into control, control anything, just to make me feel better.

I still get caught by it. I still get depressed and think I am no good and my art sucks and my writing is no good and who am I to share how I see the world with anyone. It takes me anything from a few hours to a whole day before the light dawns and I think ‘oh, yeah, it’s that time again, this will pass’ and I feel a little better.

So run away! Warning flag is up and waving and I am going to hide until I have access to my rational faculties again and can look at my life with a clear view and decide how I want to sort out what came up this time…