Ode to the wandering mind

I am trying to think my way into an exploration of what is a defect, what is an attribute, and how can we tell the difference. One of my rigidly-held beliefs is that we all learn to live adaptively. There may exist the perfect specimen of humanity, at ease in every situation, able to complete each task without misstep or delay, possessing unshakable mental clarity, a model of light-hearted spontaneity. I am not that creature.

My history, my present, even with years of attempts to correct them, are issue-riddled. There has been progress, but on first glance it may seem otherwise. I have yet to acquire the habit of order, which does not get easier with age and decreased mobility. Accomplishing things in a timely fashion, always a challenge, now feels like someone untied the mooring line and the dingy has almost reached the horizon.

In the past few days, two women I admire for their honesty, insight and mad writing skills, have mentioned parents who disparaged their minds, their thought processes. Always remembering to clean the lint out of the dryer screen is no measure of talent or intellect. A so-called wandering mind may be a sign of genius. In fact, it has not even really wandered, it just hasn't stopped for very long in the place someone else thought it should.

Nothing I've heard has convinced me that there is such a thing as normal. There is desirable, there is generally acceptable, there is trouble-free and agreeable. But within the privacy of our very separate processes, based on all the factors that make us something that is not them, who is to say we are doing it wrong. Each of us comes at life from a distinct direction...who knew there were so many compass points. What was packed into those bandanas tied to the sticks resting on our shoulders has never been seen before. Even we may not know what to call the oddly-shaped novelties as we unwrap our bundles. The ones with the least appeal, the lumpy, scary, not-so-pretty ones we toss aside, only to find, somewhere along the road, they have found and claimed us.

What I seem to have come to, in this segment of musing on a topic that, like the parts of ourselves we try to elude, will not go away, is that when what we have are thoughts that refuse to stay in their narrow channels and instead flow across the landscape, we need not become alarmed. I am developing this theory that we grow into our minds. Some may find them comfortable, an easy fit, from the beginning, but others of us have a good bit of debris to shove aside. It can be disorienting, finding all that space, room for big thoughts, the teachings of small minds no longer sucking up all the oxygen. Feather-headed, ditsy, spacey, forgetful, absent-minded, dreamy, unfocused, undisciplined, yes. Yes I am and thank you for noticing.