On the first day of Lent, I decided that I would give up surfing the Internet and computer time except for writing and research. So today I bought a cup of coffee and drove out to the lake--it is a beautiful windy spring day--and parked where I could watch the seagulls, and reflect on my life. I'm at a crossroads and I'm sitting at the intersection trying to decide which way to go.
I've enumerated my thoughts, but they are not related, necessarily, one to another:
1) My first thought on rising this morning, and first thoughts are always significant, was a rather idealistic one where I could now choose to dispense with the baggage and accumulated deletrious of my life, the things that hold me down, and actually live into my ideals. The funny thing is that through all the apparent changes throughout my life, my actual ideals have changed very little. Things want to cling to me, to follow me around, to burden me and drag me into their grasp. And some of them are huge! Like my house. And these things define me. The things that are hardest to escape from are the heirlooms and this house is full of them.
2) This is a question that could have many answers: What about my near future? It seems that I need to get a job, to pay my own way, to educate my son and continue to provide him with the opportunities that suit his talent. A lot could be said about the state of my marriage--where I would be perfectly pleased to go on as we are, but I think I've been mistaken as to how satisfactory that would be for my husband for whatever strange, unexpressed, incomprehensible reason, while at the same time he holds on.
3) I was thinking of self-denial and realized that self-denial can be as much of a self-indulgence as anything.
4) In looking ahead, I realize that I don't want to let the world frame my vision. Money is necessary for sustenance and security, but the act of earning it can be a trap that derails us from more important and independent action--the right individual course for each person. This is a great concern for me because I already feel that I don't fit in with society in general. If it weren't for my situation as defined by motherhood and property that can't be shed overnight, I'm much more inclined to go into a life of solitude. So, as crazy as this sounds: what would the simplicity that I would like to embrace cost?
5) We see no further than our focal point. How often is our attention framed by a view that is focused on the same vista? I realized this as I was driving out to the lake and drove past some huge new houses that have been built near the park. Something is always grabbing our attention and holding it. Houses built with a view are a big selling point, but how often do we stop and take a look out that window? I actually do have a beautiful view toward the back where we are situated on a hill that overlooks the river with no apparent obstructions--so I know what I am talking about. I do take a look every now and then, admiring a sunset or watching the clouds, but for the most part, my attention is focused within these walls and is limited by them. Even when I look out the window, some nearer focal point is likely to grab my attention.
6) This may seem odd, but I am seriously inclined to enter into a monastic community. I think I should investigate that possibility. Obviously there are others who are drawn to that life--and of course, it fits with my belief that I really no longer fit in with the rest of the world, I hear a different drummer. The biggest drawback according to my personality? Silence in the presence of others. I'm good at silence alone.
7) On being a writer, which I am naturally because I am simply inclined to put words on paper. This is another facet of my life in which my own ideals have been derailed by misplaced focus. I think I need to take a step back and let my writing come into focus, spending some time on reflection--and the reflection itself may be the part I've been misplacing.
As I drove past a meadow where black angus cattle were grazing, I remembered that part of my life before Ike was born and the man who filled my heart and hopes. That story of his dreams lost through fear, a life that failed, a square peg in the round hole that society creates, and his story is more universal than the small town and the small life he lived. More people now are finding themselves falling through similar cracks--as I am. The world is becoming less tolerant of diversity--like a housing addition, automatons living "scheduled" lives, rules and limitations imposed by norms that are increasingly narrow. As I age, I see that this is a world created for people with good vision, for example, and so at all times a large number of people are living lives hindered by visual handicaps. And so, it seems, that my focus here is on a life lived in obscurity and one that left no lasting mark on the world--as the majority of us do--and the pointlessness of our existence dwindling into a derelict end. I see a barn falling in on itself in the midst of tall grass, the land consuming it. I became most aware of this as I watched my own father's life cave into Parkinson's disease as all that he ever took pride in was taken from him, his strength, his knowledge, his intelligence and his memory and even, finally, his dignity, until death, that great equalizer, grabbed hold of him and took him. I'm still in the shadow of the "slippery slope to the nursing home" frame of mind. And how can I help it when the last twenty years of my life has been framed by it?
In short, I don't think I have quite pinpointed my "Vein of Gold" as Julia Cameron would say. I don't know if I am avoiding it because it frightens me and I can't face it or if I have another, happier one waiting inside me for me to pry it loose.
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