Skimmers as a way of life
Skimmers have appeared in the bayou – gliding along the water in search of fish to eat. R, who works for Wildlife and Fisheries, was sitting out on the bayou last night enjoying a glass of wine. He said they are migratory and he hasn’t seen them around here before.
I kept coming back to that word – skimmers – on my walk this morning – how in the past week each time I have been confronted with an emotional pothole, I have chosen to skim rather than plunge or get stuck. Observing my own behavior, I wondered if skimming was a good response.
The pothole line-up was pretty extensive, ex-husband, ex-friends, ex-lover, ex this and that, all fraught with innuendoes, guilt, and remorse, and gaping in some instances.
But I was thinking as the Bean and I walked along the lagoon this morning about what I was telling my reporters in Tarrytown when one of them voiced the concern that we have been at this same place before, “it’s like we are going around in circles,” he said, and I said, actually that’s life, you circle back to the same places, but if you picture life as linear or a flat, one dimensional circle, then we are going back to the same place, but if you view life as a spiral that continually expands and elongates, then each time you find yourself in the same place, you are actually not because you are on a higher rung and as life goes on, the frequency of you’re going back to the same place actually broadens.
So skimming the potholes doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t feel them, or don’t notice them, but they seem to have become less glaring while at the same time becoming more recognizable to my naked eye.
As I move around the current rotation, I know I’ve come to a higher plane in my work, and perhaps, in my personal relationships too – I’m coming to understand what attracts and repels me – I notice when I am a shock absorber – I’ve learned how to separate another’s hurt from my own – and I’ve also grown to believe that forgiveness is what brings you closer to nirvana – both of yourself and others.