So.....I've been thinking. A lot. And I have realized that something (in me) is stopping me from doing things that I want to do. And I am going to stop stopping me. Over the past year and half, with no television, no computer and sometimes just nothing, I have had a ton of time to consider my place in this world. I have felt desperate and lonely, fulfilled and excited, filled with wanderlust or happy to be where I am...I have been very confused and I feel that only now is the fog beginning to clear and I am ready to Live again. I think I have been hibernating; fat on my sadness, and hopes, and timidity, just waiting for the thaw and spring to come again. I am starving. My hunger is voracious. I am ready for the search and the hunt and the gather. I am done thinking about where I have been and it is now time to consider the places I will go. My face is thin, my bones are showing and now is the time to find the strength to go on.
And what is in this hunt, this gather, this willfullness to live? All of the things that I have wanted to do, have thought about doing, have said, "why don't I do that?" Simple things. Things that I can stop waiting for. There is nothing too grandiose. There is nothing impossible in any of my desires. I want to bake bread. That is what I want, to make a loaf from beginning to end. I started just the other day. I was given a lesson. It has begun and I will finish it. I want to create postcards. It should be simple. I send them weekly to a friend and sometimes I cannot find the perfect one. I shall make the perfect one. This is possible. I want to learn to shear a sheep, clean and card the wool, spin wool yarns and threads so that I can knit and crochet and weave from them, so that I can begin to clothe myself and my family...whoever they are and where ever they may be. There is something special, almost magic about creating a piece of cloth, making a piece of clothing to cover and protect a friend or loved one. I will begin with myself. I will fortify myself and in so doing will be able to fortify others. I want to write. And I do. And I am doing it now.
And mostly I want to live simply. I feel it is necessary to rid my self and my living quarters of everything I don't need. My life has become convoluted by things and false desires. We are conditioned to believe that we need things to be happy when I believe that working 40+ hours for all these things, clothes, cars, apartments, jewelry, fancy televisions and phones and computers and everything is actually making us very unhappy. We have been conditioned to believe that things will bring fulfillment to our lives, but in reality we are left with nothing, with emptiness, dried-out shells...If I rid myself of these things, these meaningless objects, I can lay out my true self and see who I am. And when I meet someone, they will not be blinded by my trendy clothes and shoes and earrings and watch. They will see what is me. And with any luck, what they see will be more brilliant than any thing they have ever known.
I am not the first person to say or think or realize any of these things, but this is the first time I have realized them for myself. The first step is my awareness. The second step will be in practice. This search, this hunt, this gather for my new season's strength has begun.
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