5 Sun worshipping
Monday June 7, 2010:
I lie in the sun. Stark naked and smeared with sun tan cream, I allow my limbs to relax and stay where I leave them.
Softened by a scratchy old blanket, the earth beneath me holds me unconditionally. The bumpy thick leafy grass cushions me. The sun burns down, heating my skin. I am beginning to glow. I feel my bones sigh with thanks.
The gusty wind here is gentler, close to the ground. Yet it is still determined to make its presence felt. The mountains shape this valley and offer a bowl in which the wild wind can dance. It dances round and round. Days go by before it finds its way out, changes direction or gives up.
In the meantime, the wind tempers the heat of the sun. It plays with the fine hairs on my legs and arms. They tremble softly against my warm skin. I roll over to toast another part of me.
No, I can’t move! The sun has pinned me down to the earth. It demands that I lie back and think of nothing but how warm it is. Hotly, it breathes upon my willing limbs.
I imagine the sun, wildly flaming in the bluest of clear blue skies, so bright that it is unsafe to look. Now that I am blind, I am no longer tortured by the brilliance of the sun. All my young life, its glare sought to dazzle me, to cloud my poor sight with its brilliance.
For a time during the place between final diagnosis and the departure of my sight, I dreaded the sunshine. If the sun shone, and it was a gloriously yellow and green spring that year, I could see nothing. I would stumble slowly down the streets, moving from shadow to shadow, eyes streaming from the pain of the light. Dusk or the low cloud of a rainy day brought relief and temporarily I could move again with freedom until the sun next chose to come out.
And now I choose to lie in the fierceness of the rays, to willingly soak them into my skin. I stretch out in a gesture of submission to the sun. I feel its hot breath recharge my tired energy, warm me, loosen the stiffness of muscles. I roll over, luxuriating in the heat of the Andalusia afternoon. Nothing to do but to be here, still and quiet. This is the life!
Monday June 7, 2010:
I lie in the sun. Stark naked and smeared with sun tan cream, I allow my limbs to relax and stay where I leave them.
Softened by a scratchy old blanket, the earth beneath me holds me unconditionally. The bumpy thick leafy grass cushions me. The sun burns down, heating my skin. I am beginning to glow. I feel my bones sigh with thanks.
The gusty wind here is gentler, close to the ground. Yet it is still determined to make its presence felt. The mountains shape this valley and offer a bowl in which the wild wind can dance. It dances round and round. Days go by before it finds its way out, changes direction or gives up.
In the meantime, the wind tempers the heat of the sun. It plays with the fine hairs on my legs and arms. They tremble softly against my warm skin. I roll over to toast another part of me.
No, I can’t move! The sun has pinned me down to the earth. It demands that I lie back and think of nothing but how warm it is. Hotly, it breathes upon my willing limbs.
I imagine the sun, wildly flaming in the bluest of clear blue skies, so bright that it is unsafe to look. Now that I am blind, I am no longer tortured by the brilliance of the sun. All my young life, its glare sought to dazzle me, to cloud my poor sight with its brilliance.
For a time during the place between final diagnosis and the departure of my sight, I dreaded the sunshine. If the sun shone, and it was a gloriously yellow and green spring that year, I could see nothing. I would stumble slowly down the streets, moving from shadow to shadow, eyes streaming from the pain of the light. Dusk or the low cloud of a rainy day brought relief and temporarily I could move again with freedom until the sun next chose to come out.
And now I choose to lie in the fierceness of the rays, to willingly soak them into my skin. I stretch out in a gesture of submission to the sun. I feel its hot breath recharge my tired energy, warm me, loosen the stiffness of muscles. I roll over, luxuriating in the heat of the Andalusia afternoon. Nothing to do but to be here, still and quiet. This is the life!
posted by Blackbirdowl | 9:23 AM
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