volta
“Her charms, but she’s too full of fire;
Impatience ever racks her breast,
Her heart a stranger is to rest.”
Dear Anias,
I'm a bit hot. Very oily. I think I'm running a fever, though it's impossible to tell. What I lack in analysis, critical thinking, and shaping, I make up for with excitement.
Imagination is our greatest asset; it is a gift to create worlds.
I haven't constructed anything I'm especially proud of. It's why I don't show my work to anyone. I haven't read what I wrote, so why would I show it to anyone else? My obligation must be to review, and I'm not ready for that depth of reflection.
I'd rather write to you! I'd rather sit and sip my coffee and meander through my dreams.
I missed book club. I couldn't sleep, and at 3:36am, I turned off my alarm. What ails me that keeps me awake? The heat inside of me. My lust is sponging through my pores. I am dry and devastated today. I have a headache. I must have a spring cold.
It's too easy to say that I am sick of Nimes. I get like this with every place I've visited. Three weeks, I'm ready to release myself from whatever routine I've constructed. It's not Nimes; it's me. I'm sick of Stephanie and with a shift in the outer landscape, I can avoid the dirty laundry. Rather stuff it down into a bin and close the lid.
I woke up to review the Bhagavad Gita and put laundry soup in the percolator. That's when I decided I would go back to bed. I was too disoriented. I felt oversized; my pajamas were wet with sweat. Yes, I think I am perhaps a bit ill.
The days are very long sitting here, striking notes for the screen. How must it have felt with a pencil and paper! Or ink! Imagine the discipline of setting a pen in ink and moving it along the page until it was dry and then repeating the whole affair!
My disregard for the process makes me feel ashamed as a writer. I feel guilty for not attending book club, which is mine to deal with. How many promises have I broken, and will I break? I put myself first. I always do this, and is that wrong?
Service to others feels good. I feel alive and lighted like the tip of a wand I watch burn as I write. It wears down to a bright little nub and leaves ashes on the table.
I wish I had not said I would be there. I would not feel this poorly had I not gone back on my word. Is it better to show up for people or to take care of yourself? I missed every meditation this month. I am tired. It is an excuse, and it is how I feel.
If I wanted to be there, I would have been. Soap in the coffee pot and bubbles in my mouth!
People are all we have. Community, each other, this life is made magic through our interactions with those around us. I cannot learn and live as I do without support. More importantly, my evolution would be much slower if I were going at it alone. I'd probably perish.
We see an aspect of ourselves when we connect with people. I can not perceive my reflection without the assistance of a mirror. Relationships reveal that reflection.
Number 1 showed me how utterly detached I could be from my body. From myself. From my surroundings. I didn't care about the first time we had sex; I had sex. I remember it all so vividly. Down to the sequins on the frock I'd been wearing. A prom dress. A sparkly turquoise blue party dress. My hair had been curled, and I took my shoes off and walked in the grass barefoot. It was wet and soft. I climbed through his window, not that I needed to. He lived in a bungalow with two friends. The kitchen was always filthy. Pots and pans streaked with dried food sat in the sink for days. There were rabbits in the backyard where we'd lay under a crabapple tree and read.
His mattress was set on the floor and he had no other furnishings. Everything he owned was stuffed in the closet. We didn't speak. I took the pins out of my hair and he dried my feet with a towel before we took off our clothes and went to bed. It hurt. I cried. There was blood on the bedding and he stripped it while I had a shower.
We slept thigh to thigh and did it again in the morning.
It hurt less. I felt nothing. Not for him or myself. Or the small room that smelled of musky bodies. He made eggs for breakfast and we sat on the patio and watched the rabbits while we ate. I don't think we had coffee. I wasn't as attached back then.
Number 1 was beautiful in body and spirit. He had dark eyes and curly hair and was tall and tanned. He laughed a lot, smoked excessively, and wasn't great at conversation. I loved him the moment I saw him. We worked at the leisure center. He was a lifeguard and I was a swim teacher. I taught the small kids in the shallow pool and he would watch. Saturday mornings. He was seven years older than me. I was in grade eleven and my life was coming undone like the threads on a favored sweater.
Slowly, insidiously, you don't notice until one sleeve is a bit ragged looking, and then a friend says, that looks old. And you don't want to throw it out, but you know it's time.
My life was like that back then. Just a run-on sentence waiting for the period to stop it all.
I got fired from the leisure center because I was always late. Every weekend. It wasn't the first time I'd be let go for loose ends. I worked for two seasons, through spring and summer, and was not given classes in the fall.
I could explain why I was late, though does it matter? It's an excuse. No matter what occurs. If you want to be somewhere, you are. And I wasn't. I couldn't be. I always made it; I'd be wet and breathless from the pace on my bike. I rode my bike everywhere back then. I still do, or did, until I gave my bike away.
I prefer having control over waiting for public transit.
I arrived in one piece and Sue, the pool manager, was never satisfied. It's fair; someone had to jump in to start my classes. It was always her. Two minutes is an eternity in a cold pool on a Sunday morning with squealing toddlers. I understand.
I never felt bad about being late for my swim classes. My tardiness was out of my control. My home world was slowly rotating beyond my means of understanding, which shook my inner landscape to a degree I could not outwardly manage. I stopped sleeping well. I had trouble eating. I stayed out late with friends, sitting somewhere watching people. Drinking to numb the noise in my body.
One morning, my mom took my cell phone away. She threw it in the toilet. I don't remember the reason. I sat in the bathroom, cried, and missed the entire morning of classes.
I think that's when Sue decided to let me go.
Number 1 did not help my situation. He being so much older. He had nice teeth and smelled like clothes drying in the sunshine. He also smelled like marijuana.
I don't think Sue liked Number 1, but he never slipped up. We were unionized, so she couldn't do anything.
Three strikes. That's how it worked. I had like seven strikes.
When I didn't get a set of classes in the fall, Number 1 said it wasn't a big deal. I could focus on finishing high school and applying at another pool next summer. He was right, of course. I still felt crappy.
I let people down. The kids I taught to blow bubbles. The parents likely looked forward to that 30 minutes to themselves. Sue, who made the schedule. Most importantly, I let myself down. I worked hard for my lifeguarding certifications and was released from my first opportunity to perform. I wanted so badly to succeed.
In the bigger picture, it isn't a big deal. Nor is my missing book club. But however, yet, I let people down. I said I would do something and didn't do it. I didn't execute. I did not fulfill the expectation.
If I had gone to Sue and said, my family, is breaking up. I'm sixteen and don't know what to do with myself. What could she have done? She couldn't care on one level. Her job was to manage a swimming pool, not tend to the emotional needs of a teenager.
We can't care about what other people are experiencing all of the time, can we?
All we have, all I have, is the choices I make that create the conditions of my life. My existence. Today I chose sleep over showing up for my friend when I said I would show up. It is the same as being sixteen and not showing up for the job. The conditions were not met and I had to deal with the consequences.
Does it matter who has control? Does it matter who or what is blocking your path? You're there, or you aren't there. The universe contrives to support or undermine the plan. And we each have to deal with the consequences. No matter who participated in the design of the plans.
My mother was an obstacle throughout much of my youth. I used to wonder why and now see that it really doesn't matter. Her reasons are hers to settle within herself, within her soul.
My duty is through Ganesha, Lord of New Beginnings. A trickster, Ganesha is the one who places and removes obstacles on the path. To test you, to illuminate something, to force a different direction. To forge a new attitude and appreciation for what is.
Clara always says, work with what you got.
And what a relief that is to acknowledge!
I think I've always felt this simplicity in my being, the ability to take things as they come and keep floating. To keep thrusting yourself like a thumb on a wide road.
I was hired that same year at a different pool, where I was provided more money and a means to buy a car that got me to and from university. Number 1 and I kept dating until the summer I graduated. He took me to my prom, the gown from our first night together was for my friend's older brother's prom. I left his graduation party and my own early. I still don't care about decorum.
We ended things, Number 1 and I, in a forest at a bonfire party. He'd been wearing a white shirt and I could see him glowing in the moonlight. Verbally, he broke up with me. Energetically, I ended things.
You could have said something, you know. I'm not upset.
I nodded.
Why didn't you tell me? Say something! It's worse this way.
I shrugged.
He slept with one or two of my friends afterward. I didn't care about that, either.
None of this is personal.
Another of Clara's great statements.
Who have I let down, Anias? And who has let me down? It doesn't matter. Really. People show up or they don't; if they don't, it isn't about you. It's about them. Keep moving. Inhale to create and exhale to float.
My life is a run-on sentence and I like it this way. One clean line extends from dawn until dusk, reflecting what could be.
Just imagine!
Photo source.
