here, there and everywhere
today i woke up at 8:30am to find a misty sky and a hungry cat. the sun was quickly burning through the mist when i walked down to the shop to buy some milk and bananas. when i was mowing the lawn at 10:30am, the sun was hot on my arms and face. i stopped to reapply sunscreen frequently.
when i am at home alone i don’t usually play music, at least not during the day. so i worked in the garden, carried laundry to and from the washing machine, cleaned the bathroom and read my book in silence. i checked the internet infrequently. i didn’t eat too much chocolate. i cooked a sensible dinner.
on this plain canvas danced a constant gyrating song, themes appearing and dissapearing, conclusions arrived at and lost again. my mouth was silent but this only made the dance more creative and colourful, limbs spiralling through the air with fervour, ribbons and bells trailing behind. my hands pulled weeds from the garden of their own accord. my dancer was busy elsewhere. words and phrases echoed in my mind.
in this stillness, when i have withdrawn from the world of smalltalk and social routines, when my attentions are not being demanded but i give them as gifts to the world around me, i feel my creative force running strong inside me. a powerful underground river, surging in the dark subterranean space below the ground my feet stand upon. i know it’s there all the time, even when i am in meetings with management types. in the deepest sleep you are just as present as when you are awake. the essential you is. everything else is just flashing lights and coloured sequins – which are pretty and entertaining, but ultimately a distraction.
i feel myself pulled in so many conflicting directions right now. babies? travel? career? academia? will i just keep on going in the same direction for another year until tom is finished, then embark on whatever path i want to follow at that stage? most likely travel then babies. or will i drop out of society and become an academic, taking courses through athabasca and studying at home by myself? or will i quit my job and start writing full time? i have no fixed goal in mind, no concrete and well-defined dream of working towards writing on a newspaper or the next great novel. but sometimes these things are like starting down a path in the dark, because the cabin you were staying in was rotting and falling down around you. or not even as drastic as that, maybe simply because you wanted to be actively exploring the world instead of sitting inside in that cabin.
if i were to start down that path in the dark, i would hope that i like the direction i am heading in when the dawn breaks. if not, i guess i could just change direction. as long as i wasn’t about to starve to death, which is pretty unlikely. i might be cold and sore, and might not have as many new clothes as i have now, but probably not starving.
i feel like i’m teetering on the edge of something. i feel like i’ve got a splinter in my thumb that is just below the surface of my skin, just out of the tweezer’s reach. i feel like a scared child in an amusement park. i could run off and ride the roller coaster or the zipper, but i’m afraid and what if i get flipped upside down and all the change falls out of my pockets? where will i put my candy floss? and what will i do when the ride ends and i don’t have any change or candy floss any longer? what if it isn’t actually a ride but a passage to narnia, and i never return to my classmates? i’m not afraid of a journey to narnia, but I am afraid of throwing up on myself and ending up without any pocket money. which seems rather backwards, now that i see it written out. puke can always be washed away and money can be earned again, but i couldn’t necessarily return from narnia once i’ve gone there.
so. safe but boring cabin? or frightening but potentially world-expanding path in the dark woods?
while i decide, here are some links to entertain you:
LIGHTHEARTED: when crafting goes wrong
MADE ME THINK: a “recovering homosexual” minister. my first instinct was “this is lame”, but i kept reading a little longer and got past the guy’s writing style (italicised and bracketed notes to self are a little annoying but i guess it gives his blog that genuine diary feel), and then i read this woman’s letter to the world and thought that she had a few things bang on. she used to be a lesbian, she’s got a shaved head, and the members of her church are giving her a hard time. she truly believes that Jesus is her saviour and yet she nearly left the church due to how she was being treated. she says:
As I step back from my own painful experience within the church and take in the panoramic view of the Christian churches as a whole I see the stark reality that we have all come to know: history repeats itself. Our Christian churches have come full circle with the times of Christ and it appears that we are reenacting the roles of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes of that time.
At the time of Christs ministry, he squared off against these groups. His disagreement with them was not about the written law or its strict interpretation. His disagreement with them was about the very nature of God. More importantly, His disagreement with them was about their failure to acknowledge the sovereignty and power of God.
The people of Christs day firmly believed in God, but somewhere along the line, they stopped trusting that God was in fact in control and they took upon themselves the role of playing God.
indeed. i’m impressed by her faith and attitude, given all that she has been through.
MADE ME LAUGH AND FEEL SAD AT THE SAME TIME: “How could my heart not melt? Poor little disease carrier, I wept.”
still thinking about narnia… will keep you all posted.
