I’ve spent the last few days trying to quell the voices in my head, the ones that are telling me to act now or perish. I’ve told those voices to go away, that I’m a different person than I used to be, that I’m one who has let go and is letting god, but these voices talk back in the most imprudent manner. They are like harpies or sirens beckoning sometimes to peer behind the pearly gates, to wonder if indeed life might be better unlived.
My first husband firmly believed I was searching so hard that I had the potential to join a cult. He insisted I would have been a Jim Jones follower. But I don’t think so. I think I might have the capacity to be a Jim Jones, but not follow one. At dinner last night, I was telling friend about the dream I had where I was on the shaky bridge over troubled waters and I got to the part where the bridge stopped abruptly and in front of me was a mad sea. In my waking moments I still don’t know if I should have plunged in? Or done what I did – high-tail it back to the city of Gotham.
I think my issues are more in reconciling all the parts of who I am, the Rachel who rides high towards the sun, catches fire, and falls lifeless to the ground – bonk. When you’re crawling around down here on your hands and knees you contemplate many things, like going underground for good, like lying down for a long nap, like flipping over suddenly and staring up in wonder. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars?
My critics would say I’m an unstable sort, capable of wallowing in a question without an answer for days on end, a sprinter who is running so fast that nobody can keep up, a whirling dervish and self-indulgent vixen. Am I the person you’d ask to be in the trenches with? Or the one you shake your head and say, “Bless her heart” about?
I think the art of living in your head is over rated, is not what you would call rational even though that would be the first thing you’d think if I told you I live in my head. He lives in his head. I think you have to live in your heart. You have to rail rail rail against the voices in your head and live in your heart as much as possible. Proceed with love, look out for the next person but row your own boat as my friend said last night.
Row your own boat.
A life time of learning then unlearning behavior, of being willing to give it all up to get some peace of mind, to not letting go of anything you hold dear – to the endless back and forth of life. I exhaust myself sometimes. A mentor said to me the other day, do you have something in your life that is irrational but you can’t stop doing it – um, blogging. Then blogging is the deal you cut with the devil to survive.
For those who think they have any clue as to who I am, I say, you don’t know Jack.
