Nobody Loves me, everybody hates me, I’m going into the garden to eat worms.

Long fuzzy ones, short slimy ones, fat polka dot ones…

Nobody Loves me…

Yesterday at the end of the day after a full day of exploring miserable, I succumbed to a bath of epsom salts and essential oils and lit candles.

It was dark and only 7 pm.

I awoke sluggish and tired after too many days of long working hours.

I don’t like feeling sluggish or tired.

The edges of the world get sharp.

Questions about what I am doing, how I do something, and where and why feel like an inquisition and I respond with irritation and sharpness.

Just leave me alone while I eat one more lovely ‘blue worm’

I begin to pick the scabs of past and the present unhappy stories in my life.

Nobody Cares.

I push the repeat button letting those sad, lonely, hungry feelings wash over me and another worm wiggles down deep into me to nourish the dark.

I need to get dressed, face the world, make myself breakfast.

It's 11:30 and I don’t feel like getting dressed.

I find a favourite sweater, remember the lovely experience of buying it in Edinburgh.

I match it with comfortable tights and slip on moccasins.

Oh, it's been a long time since I’ve travelled and it was such a lovely trip… No travelling this year, the ‘pink worm’ says, as it slides by my lips.

What to eat…

There’s enough milk for a latte, but the bread it moldy.

Steve, by now, is looking at me ‘carefully’.

He knows I need uplifting.

He offers lunch out and I chew on another worm and complain.

I’m too tired and there really isn’t anything I want to eat.

Steve heads out for lunch.

I nibble on anther ‘green worm’, feeling left.

It's raining with periodic snow.

Maybe if I go for a walk I’ll feel better.

I stand on the porch looking out to the lake, steaming with fog and refuse to see the beauty.

Maybe I’ll go to the garden, but no, today my garden has only the worms of emptiness and there is too much to be done…

Last week I found the missing keys to our storage building.

I had been imaging the egg cups that I knew were there.

They are back in my kitchen now and I am determined to go beyond the worms.

I decided to make 7 minute eggs.

Eggs in beautiful cups, eaten with toast fingers is food for my soul.

This kind of breakfast evokes my mother, grandmother and aunts.

They were so womanly and elegant when they carefully cut the top of the egg off, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, then dipped the toast fingers into the perfectly cooked yolk.

Chewing slowly, the day would begin with a kind of order and commitment to themselves.

Maybe if I knit I’ll feel good, like I’ve accomplished something.

There are so many unfinished projects.

That worm was a rather large one…

I ate fresh pears.

Days like this are not many for me.

When they do occur, if I allow myself, I have the tools to move from the negative to the positive thoughts.

I have read, workshopped, therapied and practiced with many tools for most of my adult life.

Quality food, quiet, friendship, partnering, tea, yoga, meditation, aromatherapy, conversation, cleaning, baking, knitting, writing, sleep, rest, hugs, love, reading, massage.

These are the ‘red wiggler earth worms’ in my compost and my garden, my life.

They take waste and transform it into healthy soil.

These worms have five aortic arches - hearts - and spend their lives making the environment they live in better.

These are the kind of worms that I like to hang out with.

Imagine - 5 hearts to call upon!

After a day of feeling the tired and despair of a life filled to the brim, I nibbled on Comox Brie Cheese and pears from from my garden, and I connected to the silence.

To get there, I had phoned a friend, left a message, asked Steve to find music that inspired, refilled the essential oil diffuser, cleaned a cupboard, baked bread, chose to begin a new knitting project, read from a couple of books and finally, filled the tub and lay contemplating the goodness of my life.

After all, my earth worms have 5 hearts.

When we are feeling low, it's the lovely possibilities that make all the difference

Love,

Kathleen