Counting Steps

I'm getting chilled as I type this.

The sweat from my walk and the heat from my body
don't like this abrupt change--from outside
to inside in the air-conditioning.

Walked the cemetery this morning because the middle-
schoolers were outside at the track today and though
they don't bother me, I prefer to walk alone. So, I counted
my steps to get some idea of how far I was walking.

one, two, three...fifty....seventy

There's Marjorie's dad's stone

ninety-five, one hundred and twenty

Someone put some cattails in the urns
on Brenda's dad's stone...maybe Brenda...maybe
her mom. How long did he suffer with emphysema...
I can't remember now...seems years

two hundred, two twenty-five

And there is John's stone...someone I didn't know
at all but feel somehow I do now...died in his thirties,
left behind a wife and two daughters whose beautiful
faces are in frames in front of his stone

three hundred and five, three eighty

How sad. I feel so sad every time I pass Susan's
stone. An aneurysm in her late thirties, young children
at home, her life prolonged with feeding tubes, her death
some 20 years later in a nursing home

four hundred twenty, four hundred eighty, finally
five hundred. I am sweating and wondering why I do this.
Why do I walk? Why do I think I can make it work this
time? How many times I've tried to get healthier, take
better care of myself, stop the abuse, start to believe
I might make it this time only to just slide right back
into the same old comfortable bad habits that have sustained
me for years...

There's Patti's dad's stone. Someone has put flowers there
recently, or it appears so...She's lost her mom and her dad..
both have been dead for many years now.

Geez, only up to nine hundred fifty and I'm pouring sweat.
The sun is not a blessing this morning. I want clouds.
1,500 and counting. How many to make 2 miles? I think
I counted around 3,600 the other day.

What the hell's up with the step thing anyhoo? Because
I watched some show on the food channel (one of those
self-help for overeaters thingees--though I am not an overeater,
nor do I eat junk--I am an overdrinker--yeah, yeah--sure)
and the dietitian stressed the importance of walking at least
10,000 steps a day. What in the hell ever happened to the twelve
steps? Which makes me think of the book I am now reading--
A Million Little Pieces

Behind that tree are the graves of two of my high school
friends...brother and sister. Her death at 16--heroine overdose.
His death would come 4 years later--he drowned. She had the most
extraordinary eyes of any person I ever met--tiger eyes,
and he, oh my, he was the object of so many young girls'
affections (mine included--that was one mouth I would have
loved to have kissed)

Only two thousand and three hundred...I think I'm gonna pass
out...it's too frigging hot to be out here walking, so why didn't
I go first thing this morning? Why not wait until tonight?
This morning I didn't think I would walk at all. I was deep
in my depression and not wanting to be pulled out.
This evening, a walk would cut into my drink time and I can't
have that, now can I?

There's Nina's son--dead at twelve from a brain tumor.
His cousin is buried next to him--dead in his twenties--
motorcycle accident. And just up the hill are Ava's
boys--one dead at 6 weeks, shortly after I gave birth
to my first. The other dead only 2 years now--accidental
drug overdose.

Ok..finally three thousand and a shade tree coming up.
My hair is drenched from the sweat. I taste the salt
on my upper lip. I think this walking thing might
just big the biggest bunch of bunk I've ever embarked
on. Only 4 pounds lost the first month. And all that sweat
and all those steps.

Doc Fisher's grave is there on the right. He was a good
man and a good doctor. He listened to me when no one
else could or would. He tried to help. He always had
to pat my big, pregnant belly when he was doing rounds
at the hospital. I fell one night and there he was, checking
me out, making sure that mom and baby were fine. He
wanted me to name my son after him. We always got a laugh
outta that. His name was Charlie. And I am a Brown.
But doc is always in my heart. Matter of fact, I can still
see his smile

Thankfully I am done...3800 steps, I think, but I lost count
at times as I was thinking about the people I had loved
and lost. Or the ones I didn't know but I could venture
to guess that someone else's heart was broken when they
lost that person.

I take a big drink of water and am grateful for water.

I stand beneath a shade tree and think how much
I love trees and plants and the earth.

I look out at the sea of graves and think of all the pain,
but I don't feel sad. I feel comforted. I think for all
the pain, there must have been some happiness too.

I love them all...the dead. And I love all the angels
and balloons and wind chimes and weathered stones
and faded flowers and solar lights and stuffed animals
placed there for them.

Being with the dead makes me feel rather keenly
alive, and I thank them for spending their morning with me.