Forty-three minutes to go until my 61st birthday.
Today has been flavored with confusion. This does not please me! I want to be blissed out and zoned out as much as have been most of the other days this week. But it seems I am recovering indeed and along with the recovery comes the capacity to get worried about shit.
Jay is going tomorrow, Lorraine is worried about my finances, Dad’s worried about infections and me getting under supported, the inevitable concern arose about whether the sudden stream of academics interested in WPIT video game building will take over and turn it into some non-inclusive, money making project – wrested from my hands again. Worries, concerns filling up my mind space!
Today held much much more than this. Jay and I had an amazing and almost solitary walk by the lake. Besides the ducks and the black squirrels we were virtually alone with the fading but amazing plants, the clouds, the deep gray cold water. Later at the café I was sung “happy birthday” in Arabic, accompanied by a dancing baby and several other wonderful people. It has been a day of exploring the possibility of genuine boundaries and deep spiral connection. I can feel health returning and there was much less pain as I sat up for several hours today.
Just the same this survival has a cost which currently seems painful. I must plan, I must focus, I must make decisions, and deal with consequences. This shift in my journey is somewhat like being allowed to be a baby - like when I was very sick and whatever moments of clarity and thought came through were real gifts to everyone. Now there is a demand! The demand that there be brackets in time frames and that I step into to a linear dichotomous and responsible way of being – to take my place as an adult among my peers.
I want this of course. Of course it is still out of my reach as well. My body is not ready for serious life. However clearly I am headed in that direction. I am actually somewhere in between – not truly ready to be a citizen but no longer granted the excuse to simply be.
Could it be that I am experiencing a moment of envy? Many of my labeled brothers and sisters show no inclination to participate in political/economic life. They contribute plenty without ever feeling the need to be in reciprocal and normative activities. Many people feel sorry for them that they exist in this space of being without responsible doing. Myself I can sense the illusion that I might enjoy long moments of such extraordinary freedom.
But it is an illusion and I am probably more responding at this moment to fatigue and intensity than anything real.
Just the same, ordinary life can become so worried and narrow. It is not a place that I want to be. I do not want to be bored to death by concern, no matter how practical and obvious it may be.
Well I guess it is not such a big deal. I am sure I will look back on today and recognize that I was simply experiencing re-entry.
There is a dream in here somewhere though. It is something about being deeply connected. It is not that I don’t have that – I have it more than most people have experienced. But somewhere there is an even richer dream. I can imagine, or at least barely sense, a world where everyone could experience something like this – some freedom from worry and concern, some capacity to be intensely present. Perhaps there is something beyond – something about the Star Raft that Jay introduced me to today, something where the economics sort themselves out and people just take care of each other.
It would seem that I am preparing to dive again and reach for this lustrous but illusive pearl.
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