an unusually warm day.
time has slowed
though many are back to work.
sound of bees humming,
though they aren’t
not near me.
this morning I saw the murk of grey clouds harden into a covering that lifted right off
all at once
off the dawn sky
off the sunrise blossoming into day
off my heart
drifting away, I didn’t even pay attention because the dawn caught my breath
breathing sighs
among the warm breezes, among the back to work hum
an unusually warm day
While I have been fretting about the presence or absence of the innocent and ancient self, other things have been going on, which I somehow did not connect.
It’s been a time of furious difficulty. And in this difficulty I’ve been unusually lost.
I have chosen a life of particular exposure to the wilds of existence, and yet normally I know where I am. I have an inner stability borne of experience and love.
The last months have been like a battering. Certainly not comparable to other terrible events elsewhere, but for a self that wants to make creative work, crushing.
After every wham of difficulty I have tried to regroup, only to (sometimes) glimpse a moment of arrival before, wham, some other violence to my body, self, relationships, possessions, work…
After months of bravery, suddenly it was too much. I was distressed, tearful, lost. Plus the endless noise disturbance of the sound injury fills every moment of potential rest.
No wonder the delicate self was not keen on showing up.
Today I reflected on various ‘solutions’ that had been proffered in the last week: Get new friends, take a flight, look online, try America.
All of them, I could feel, were like trying to tack a threadbare patch over a crater and hope for the best.
A deeper part of me thanked the offerers and explained, yes, this seems like a sensible option, but it is not enough. I cannot thrash around trying to fix things.
This morning I realised what was really going on. I was being intimidated out of staying in position, by who knows what force, but the one we often concede to.
The recognition summoned a deeper ally: No.
No I will not back down.
No I will not make compromises.
No I will not fritter away truth.
No I will not choose my path based on fear, mockery and pressure.
Nothing much has changed in the circumstances.
But in the inner situation, the clarity is like a protecting force.
Maybe she will come out now that she knows she will not be betrayed.
I went to the watercolour museum and, at the last minute, forgot my phone.
Hmm. Do I go back, arrive late?
Hmm. Will anyone miss me? Is it callous to disappear if someone might be worried?
On the tram I ask a stranger to borrow their device and smugly reproduce from memory the mobile number of my mother. Please can you text x and y so that they don’t worry.
(Later I heard that she’d glanced at the strange number and dismissed the message as a scam. <Delete>)
I was unexpectedly free.
We all know this. We’ve read the articles in newspapers, the lack of phone now noteworthy enough to represent paid-for content.
But it’s real, the freedom.
I caught a bus and was delivered both to the seaside, and to an earlier self, the one, perhaps, that traveled around Europe on a career break just in time to have witnessed those places before smart-phones, selfies and repeat-posing. In time to experience community with strangers in a way that would never exist again.
Well, that still did not exist.
Or to a deeper self, a more mysterious self, the self of summers and depth-of-winters and sweetness and the self that knows innocent things and yet has the wisdom of ancient and commonplace experience.
It was as if all my responsibilities had been left behind, both the real ones but also the symbolic ones in that device, and then the reticent self emerged and coalesced for a little while, and I didn’t dare think too much about it in case I lost her too suddenly.
We saw the exhibition. We ate lunch in the sun. We swam. We took photos of textures and time.
Then the end was coming and of course as I approached home, dozy with the sun and hum of a phone-less journey, she slipped away.
And I am left to ponder if there is any real-life-compatible way to appeal to her.
I was radiant with hope
delighting in the beauty
the truth, luminous over
my being, my story.
Blows rained down,
as if a cudgel to the heart
yet mere words.
You took my fears
as a script, copied
the old patterns
I thought I had, perhaps
eluded.
You crushed all joy from me
dismissing that it once
was shared, that depth,
the wonder of a true
communion.
Or was it? Certainty you
sowed with doubt, did you?
were you? how could you?
To our dreaming together you said,
no, alone.
An uncanny insistence
growls irritable from deep within me.
Trust your heart; your
own wisdom is truth.
Believe yourself.
What do I say to you now?
Can I undo myself from the
places you have
conveniently assigned for me
not to cause disturbance
not to trouble your
nice new story?
to elude the work
of making ground?
Can I heal from the idol
jailer of your own captivity?
My battle now is yours,
unfought.
I am not ruled by
convenience or comfort.
I seek truth.
Your blows have momentarily discouraged me
My wounds will heal
A mere skirmish, I will announce,
My laughter will return.
I will dance again.
I have lived this story before,
perhaps, yes,
some may say
but now I’m wiser
I untwist the events from your grasp
evil prophet,
I laugh giddy at my freedom, my knowing
this time the story will belong to beauty.
In la vie suspendue, time is running through me, or to be more precise times. I can feel them, some of them streaming through with no thought of clinging on, some ferociously disputing ownership, claiming my desires, my thoughts, my imaginations, my frailties.
Perhaps it takes this enforced slowness to truly notice the other forms of speed swirling. I am poised in some kind of eternal time, and despite the continuous risks I feel of slipping off its axis, this eternal time, now that I have returned to it, is steady, more steady than I realise, and I don’t seem to slip off as much as I fear.
And so then the other times are making themselves felt, the slow slipping time of summer tempo days punctuated occasionally by the panic of the end time, when I will have to return to the demands of work. So then business time and the seasons of my clients – holidaying for July or holidaying for August or holidaying for a two week scrap of childcare before swapping with the other partner to return to work, according to culture.
His time, how long will it take him, what is he thinking, does he have a time with me in it, should I reach out time, no probably not, patience, time.
Biological time, googling statistics, pondering depleting likelihoods.
Ageing, in a way the same, but felt differently, eyes, hair, skin just a little bit different from last year’s summer photos.
Divenire time, Andante, one dotted crochet = 60 beats per minute.
Ontological time, such a very very long time it takes to manoeuvre the human psyche into new orders to wholeness, always a shock.
Capitalist time, now, immediately, preferably yesterday although then you didn’t actually knew the offer existed, or the deadline.
Poor pitiful modern time, no depth, no heart, no soul, no allowance for grieving, passion, healing, compassion, renewing, also known as ‘according to my personal convenience time’, and ‘validate me! validate me! Entertain me! Feed me! before I pre-emptively reject you’ time.
Nature time, everything in its season, can’t be cheated, nature of reality time.
Sometimes when my younger friends are fretting about how Long everything is taking, I remind them; remember, you were raised in a culture of timescales for the insubstantial. It is a hard lesson, and I have to learn it again.
The eternal time is helping soothe the pains of this emancipation.
extraplorer 