Fighting Feathers

When I was a young girl, my mother filled my world with amazing sayings and adages that remain with me still. If she was angry, which was rare, she had some interesting ways to express it. Profanity wasn’t in her vocabulary! “WTF!” was out of the question.

With her southern accent in full force, my mother stated her upset in other ways. “Why, he makes me so mad, I could spit!” she’d say when my Daddy was in one of his rants. “I’m gonna give ya’ what Patty gave the drum!” my brother and I were told from time to time. “Why she’s got me on my ear, spoutin’ that nonsense!” or “He doesn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain!” she might say of someone. The saying that became one of my favorites, however was, “I feel like I could fight a feather!” She would utter those words under her breath, not willing to drag anyone else into her temporary distress as she plowed through the day managing the duties that lay in her path.   

For the past few days, I too have felt as though I could “fight a feather”. It’s been an underlying feeling of anxiety and fretfulness that I couldn’t discern for awhile. Something had me ill at ease though. Yesterday, I figured out what it was. May is here. May of last year was the worst month of my life, and while it is behind me, the recollection of it sneaked up on me like a bad boy and has been following me like a shadow. Knowing, truly understanding now, has freed the feathers to float away. I have been able, finally, to hold those sad, sad memories in my hands, head, and heart. I’ve cried a bit. Now I can go on.