- from "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left" by Andrew Bird (album: the Mysterious Production of Eggs).
It's late. I know. It's not too late, though. I tried hard. I held out as long as I could, hoping my feelings would change. And they did. Or my understanding of them did. Present. *The* Present. Meaning, every present moment, and its changes. I really should have died you know. Not being dramatic. True. The car in the ditch, the wrong side of the road, 10 years ago. My father, my mother, who knows who else has gone. Death is there, every moment, like a Nervous Tic. But instead, tonight, I was in the arms of a very, very good friend, watching Andrew Bird, whistling and tipping around each other and his music every moment. I am so open to every moment now. The gross ones disgust me, predictably. Then I realize their potential and move on. I feel like most of my old video tapes are --- nervous tics. Not worthy of much more than observation. Mostly good for the familiarity, then time to turn them off. Time to turn my real self back on.
I don't know where my family is in this. bell hooks, in all about love (her first installment in the series I've been reading, which ends in men and women's treatments of love, individually) says that our families contain mixed messages about love. Mixed in that we believe abuse and love can go together. They cannot, she insists, go together. When I find someone who is prone, who is a natural, at giving me straight up love, I have such a hard time believing it. It makes me cry, but laugh, too. I know I will see this through.
For a second post in a row, thanks J.
Referring to the title, so so SOglad you didn't!
ReplyDeleteAnd referring to the post, so glad you are finding such wonderful moments and hours and days. Happy to think of you happy.
One thought, though... I don't know if we ever get totally done with all the old tapes, so that we can always ignore them thereafter (Cheri Huber says something like, "Whenever anyone I know says they've completely finished dealing with their old conditioning, they tend to slide off into really weird places shortly afterward." I think that's in Dharma Talks).
Point is not to diminish your joy, but just to say that if/when you find one or more of these old tapes returning technicolor 3D--in advance, it's okay.
Anticipating this, my first thought is that it fuckin' sucks that we have to go back to the same places again and again.
But maybe that's also what helps them lose their power... another thought pops into my head...from the same book, right after what I quoted above, Huber says something like, "But that's good--if we always had new shit to deal with, it would be so much more exhausting and bewildering than revisiting the same old same old crap." (I read the book in the store, didn't buy it, so I can't give you the exact quotes).
Also, if we could be done once and for all, we might forget why we need to stay present now and every now, and we would drift away and start to miss the joyful moments like the ones you describe.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
Anyway. Happy Miri is a happy thought. Take wings and fly, my friend.
i spend a lot of time with a lot of children who are nervous, worried, depressed, miserable, needy... i don't think "children are happy."
ReplyDeletegrowing up, to me, means getting a bigger perspective. children are so much in the moment--they can't remember being happy when they are sad, can't remember being sad when they're happy (which is what makes their happiness seem enviable at times). growing up is getting to where you can remember that people are happy and sad and that it's all part of being human... you can let go of some of that frantic, frenzied feeling that children have--the desperation to hold onto happiness, the fear of never being happy again when they are sad...
i get glimpses now and then. hopefully i'll grow up eventually...