Stillness –

I love that word. It isn’t seeking peace, or quiet, but being still within.

The energy surrounding me at this very moment is kinetic. The energy is passing through me and around me.

Yet – I must remain still.

What is seemingly contradictory about this is whenever I write, I listen to the most unstill music. I must keep my mind moving, flowing, and in sync with the rhythm of my thoughts. If it is too slow, I put myself to sleep. If it is too poetic, I follow the lyrics and not my words. It has to have a cyclical rhythm; percussion pumping blood in and through my heart. It has to be familiar like a friend; started where we ended, but never finding that ending.

I have been walking a lot lately. Actually I have been changing a lot of my old patterns and tweaking them a bit –

When I walk, I aim find my rhythm with my pace, my music. Since I have increased this kind of exercise, my metabolism is finding a new path as well. I am finding I am going through my food faster, and normally when I know my sugars will start to get low, they are starting to become low a half hour to 45 minutes earlier than normal.

I try to prepare as much as I can. I eat usually a protein-based snack before I leave and grab a juice, but then while walking my thoughts began to wander the other day. I was trying to prepare myself mentally that if my sugars did begin to fall faster than I predicted, even though I prepared, what exactly would I do?

One reason I try to prepare myself in advance is when my sugars begin to descend and perhaps plummet, I start to sweat in funny places like the back of my calves and sides of my torso. My mental clarity becomes quite less to the point that I am almost unable to make a decision.

I thought, my path that I walk is like a parkway, so my access to food would at least 10 minutes away. Would I call Sheila? She would be close to a minimum 15 minutes out. Would I call a friend from work? If I had already been walking for 20 minutes, and their car wasn’t parked on-site, the time with traffic to get to me would be too long.

I would have to call 911. What was comforting is I saw three ambulances pass me one day; the next two ambulances. So, making that 911 call would probably be the right choice.

The true question is – would I know when to make that call? Would I make it at all because of who I am?

One of my favorite nurses in the world, Mary Jo McCracken, whom I found out in January passed a couple years ago – I truly felt she wasn’t around anymore, so I said good-bye in my own way over the years. She said to me years ago, “Tessa, you are going to find yourself in some real trouble one day. You need not to be so stubborn.” She was standing with her hands on her hips, staring me down in the most loving way.

The critical line between being stubborn and being stupidly-stubborn. I started to define and re-define that line then and continue to do so this day. I figure if I was sweating and my eyesight started to glaze over, then adding an increased heartrate and breathing – that is key – my body being on full alarm, I believe I would. Hesitantly. But, I believe I would say “Tessa, don’t be stupid.” The heartrate increasing along with my breathing freaks me out.

Then, hopefully I would just find a tree and the strength to hold me up until they came. I sometimes think I should have one of those health bracelets that says something about something.

Years ago while a student on the University of Minnesota campus, my sugars plummeted and I had the whole gamut of alarms going off in my body. I laid down on this half wall. I remember shutting my eyes and my heart was beating fast. The sun was beaming on my face. I laid there for a few minutes and then I said, “Get up. Get up. Get up.” I rolled off the half wall and just hit the pavement. I was like “Fuck. Move.”

As the energy is moving in and out of me right now – I remain still. I breathe in. My spirit is focused, passing through this energy like a waterfall hitting the rocks. Breathe in all its’ healing elements and allow for the excess to fall gracefully.

I never know when or how things will come, or arrive, or be shown to me. However, my goal is try to be prepared as much as I can – at least to have a plan, or a sketch of a plan. To be honest, a whole hell lot of hope and common sense had better kick in. I will be fucking mad at myself to prepare as much as I do and then fuck up on the big day.