- of a colour intermediate between black and white, as of ashes or lead
- without interest or character; dull and nondescript
- (of financial or trading activity) not accounted for in official statistics
- South African historical relating to an ethnically mixed residential area
noun
- a grey thing or animal, in particular a grey or white horse.
verb
- somewhat (as adjective greying)
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When Friday arrived, I went home. After putting the dog outside and letting her back in, I sat down. Exhausted, I fell asleep, perched sideways in a cream colored wingback.
When we eventually wandered out with the goal of eliminating tasks off the to-do, one of the stops landed us at a favorite store of mine. Just past the candles, was a shelf of intrigue and on that shelf of intrigue rested a half dozen hourglasses. Around them, a handful of smaller hourglasses. The large ones each contained a single color of sand...one of them, bright pink. The smaller ones were either black or white.
For those of you who read last week's blog, you'll remember hourglasses and pink sand and perhaps you'll appreciate the moment of synchronicity therein.
When I woke on Saturday morning, it was on the other side of a disturbing dream. I was on the campus of my first undergrad school. It was late at night, quite dark save for low orange light cast by landscape lighting. The campus was as the campus was then though, as the dream progressed, it easily morphed into the living room and kitchen of our home.
Walking through campus, I was aware of the terrible thing that had happened, but can't tell you what it was. I get a few words in trying to retrieve the event-- holocaust, massacre, tragedy, expected--none are spot on. I walk in the dream and startle when I almost trip over a body. It is a nun, in her habit, laying face down on the concrete. I know she is dead. Her white lower legs and thick soled shoes are exposed. I'm scared. As I walk there are perhaps hundreds more dead, all covered from the top of their heads to about their waists with sheets. All are women--nuns--with white lower legs & shoes exposed. I am no longer scared. It feels expected. I am not fearful of what has happened. I take a blue towel, go into a grassy area, and lay down with the dead.
It isn't until I realize I don't know where one of my cats is, on the other side of this tragedy, that I feel fear again. The cat I hunt for is black and white and our only boy. He is, from outside of the perspective of the dream, the one who comforts me differently than the rest. I have a sense he senses and understands me differently than the others.
He is eating when I find him, unharmed and unphased. His top half is blocked from my view and, like the nuns, I only see his lower half including his white back legs and long black tail.
I wake.
I tried to go about Saturday but from waking, I was off. I wrote for a bit and took a bath. It didn't help. We attempted to venture out with the plan to go to one of our favorite places about an hour away. As soon as we were outside, the light bothered me. The sounds made by trucks bothered me. The feel of the car on the road bothered me. We turned around and headed home. I went to bed, exhausted, for about two hours. I woke up with the migraine I sensed coming. I was shaky and uncomfortable and struggled for the remainder of the day, though we did run out for a bit, venturing into Target where Kim found a grey hair amongst my blonds and I, not surprisingly, found two glass hourglasses in the office supply section-- one with white sand, and one with black.
By the time I went to bed, I was engulfed in horrible nausea and terrible exhaustion. I didn't sleep well-- spending the night cold and oddly emotional.
Gratefully, I woke without 80% of the pain, nausea, and sensitivity I went to bed with. I've spent the day reading student papers-- I'd say about 4-5 hours worth of paper grading. I've read about challenges and creative takes on fictional research material. I love reading their work, though on the other side of a migraine, that much reading eye work isn't quite as enjoyable.
One of the papers I read talked of a student's belief in things being either black or white, never grey. I read through it with my black and white male cat laying next to me. As a matter of fact, each time I sat on the bed, propped to read papers, he jumped up and cuddled next to me. He knows.
After a long break, I visited a topical site in the last few weeks. It is a discussion board with a range of sub-boards. After a period of consideration, I opted to post on one where the moderators asked about triggers. I considered, thoughtfully, for a few moments those that came easily. I came up with a few: lists--people talking in lists, repetitive noise--particularly with the mouth like gum chewing, being upset, the sun warming me in the morning, when the air isn't moving, and when that air is the same temperature inhaled and exhaled. I felt, almost immediately, a sense of relief, just in having put that outside of myself after some of these things snuck into the past little bit of time. Out of nowhere, I'm back in topics I've not considered, at least in this way, in quite some time. Out of nowhere, I felt that sun the other morning. Out of nowhere, I've realized that as I think and consider and circle through some of this old, the biggest side effect is an abnormal level of tired. Almost immediately, I want to sleep. I want a long, deep sleep. A sleep marked by a few full flips of the hourglass.
But only the one with the pink sand.
Black or white never worked for me.
Black and white always has.
In the grey, I play and in the play, I learn.
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