zelly momo's blog

insidious excellence

my view of the word is very different than it once was.

living in a city, every day you look out windows that have not been washing in a long time.  after a while, you don't notice the grim, the dust, the smog. you see the world. you don't see the dirt. this world, with layers of dirty lens' is what became of my life. each pain, hurt, unexpressed thought, feeling, unrequited love, slight, sadness. each episode of violence witnessed, felt, a harmful word spoke - by me, at me, by others - each added  layer of grime. slowly i saw the world as i did. i walked in my bubble of grime, rarely noting how dirty the view was, how tainted, how isolating the bubbles. together, entwined, in separation, all the colors of the grime slightly different, shifting behaviours, awareness, diminishing the love, the touch, the comfort that flows in.  this was my life.

all these terrible things came and washed away the grime. shocking, painful, gasping for air at what i could see, missing the filter but never wanting it back.  i see differently. i feel differently. i love differently, i live differently.  but sometimes it is far too small. i want to take bigger steps, i want to grow, i want my knee to be at six feet tall so when i bend my leg and pick it up for the next step i can stretch into a space i can barely see is there. 

i am insidiously excellent at what i was.  it sneaks in some days.  the pleasure of simplicity in a thoughtless meaningless way - not harmful but lacking lacking lacking. there is more.

if i hold my hands up i can feel the touch of a thousand people, places, loves, aspects, things i haven't done, things i can do, should do, people i want to give things to.  a million glowing spaces of energy and love...let me lay my hands on your let me show you that this world is not a world of grime and distance but a world of visionary and exceptional beauty.  let us wipe away the insidious excellence of small things and embrace the magnificence in the miniscule spaces where it holds us.

I've passed months without great awareness. The beginning of better was early September.
I flew on an airplane and it only hurt to breathe for three or four days afterwards. This was a huge improvement.
When I flew back to the US, it didn't hurt to breathe.

In Italy i felt separated from my cancer, divorced, even. I left it behind. No more living with it hiding behind the door or molding the dustballs into balloon animals. It had become a definition of a self that I had allowed to control part of my life.  No more. It is very liberating.

In mid-october I realized I was happy, felt well, and could hold sustained conversations with other people. It had been a long time since I could connect thoughts, hold a conversation, and care at the same time. Sounds dreadful, no? It was.

Everytime I thought I felt better, something would occur months down the road and I'd realize I was so no OK and my friends never told me. Yes friends, I am mad at you! I wish you had told me. No k, this is not you, no, you are not yet back. Were you afraid I wasn't coming back? I needed you to tell me not to try to push. The devastation of failure I kept to myself. Truth would have been kinder.

This time I feel better, and I know to ask. Is this me? Are you sure? Is there more still missing? Can I think? Like before? I get a little head wagging. I can't tell what's truth. I'm closer though. I feel that.