 |
| Photo shamelessly borrowed from here, with thanks. |
|
Does it ever come over you, a sense of change? You've been sitting in the antechamber for what feel like lifetimes, time enough for others you know to produce creative work and find a market for it. What I once thought of as sloth may be essential marching in place. We are not where we were, we are not yet ready to step into whatever is next. From all sides the possibilities beckon, they insist, but the bridge has not yet been built and we are not such strong swimmers. Is it any less wrenching to leave an old, likely outgrown version of self than to leave others we love? Perhaps even more difficult, for we, it, can never be fully abandoned, we will always be with us, if not in fact then in memory. No wonder we fear and resist change. It is a solitary journey across open water, even with a boat our arms grow tired. I wish my sense of adventure were more robust, my reticence more easily overcome. I have doubts about being too old for this, not entirely clear about what "this" is. As I am occasionally quoted as saying, when given a directive by the universe or its front man, inner wisdom, "You can't mean me, you can't mean now." However it does mean me and if it doesn't mean now it means sometime very close to it. Shiver me timbers. My heart's in the wind.
4 comments:
Yes, your boat's in the wind, but you are in the crow's nest, Marylinn, dear, you get to see 360 degrees, you can never go so far from shore that you'll forget it, and those shades, those former selves, you're carrying them with you in your little coracle, your row boat, your canoe, only without the weight of their sorrows--that weight is what you get to leave behind. And lest we forget, change is not simply watching the coastline of the old country disappear, it is looking into the luminous light of the future, and rowing toward it without fear, without sorrow, but with curiosity and excitement, and the wind freshening your sails. xo
Melissa - Thank you, or rather, bless you, for I'd entirely forgotten to going toward and only saw the going from. How does one forget so easily something so basic and true? Rhetorical question, being equipped with a human mind. Thank you for your lovely, loving comment. xo
Oh, I needed this tonight. Thank you. I haven't listened to that song in an age, and your words were particularly resonant for me.
Elizabeth - Thank you. I swear over the past few days change has been announcing itself, a dog whistle that I seem attuned to. May we both manage whatever approaches with grace, humor and real, true grit. This song, Mr. Waits, do feel as though they can keep me afloat until...until. Love to you. xo
Post a Comment