Exhaust

Stress is not enough rest.
Stress is wearing through breath, pushed to the last
step. Stress is plane ride after plane ride, dozens of
beautiful people blurred into one.

Stress is fun strained, a choice of long sleep over
dinner, visiting dear hearts, crying when coming home,
because sadness is the same as joy.

Perhaps stress isn't stress, perhaps stress is life.
Heartbeats up and down, pushed maybe higher
than usual, but still within range.

Body rebelling to the stress status quo
letting me know I need to slow down. Stress is my check,
my balance, a better system than my conscious decisions,

warning shots off the bow, out of proportion revisions,
a quiet voice inside unheard that makes itself known in strange
strained dreams and also in relief when I stop and breathe.





I've been traveling a lot this year, and especially this fall. My system is pushing itself, with strange medical and personal ailments arising. Each time I have arrived home the last few weekends off teaching, I cry and cry, overwhelmed, exhausted, unclear. I sleep a good 10-12 hours and wake a new woman, understanding that I need to do as close to nothing as I can after working all weekend and the week before, sometimes the weekend and week before that as well, as is the case today. I will do the minimum to keep things operating - Shambhala Center directing, student inquiries, Facebook check in, teaching one class - and spend the rest of the day not spending it at all, letting it drift by, bits of books here and there, magazines plopped in, silence filling the space around me and the space inside me, opening me up, airing me out, restoring the system from the stress of stress.