Mississippi River in flood
I am in a situation of my own devising, but not me, not really, not me here now. Some other me in some other place back behind several significant corners. Those corners were such long ago sharp turns that the "person" involved is just not here any more. Some mornings I wake from dreams like this. My dreams are so long ago or so far in the future, so different, so far away that they form me but are not me. There is a consequence to this sense of me. I live a day to day life filled with decision and event. Some days are so busy that they are all that fill me. And then I wake for some reason and realize that a larger flow is going on. It's like floating down the Mississippi out in the middle, realizing I can swim around but can't really make it to the shore I can't see it's so far away. Maybe I won't drown but I think I have to have help here. Then the help goes silent and stays that way even if it is not gone, even though the sense of destiny rolls along underneath it all.
Adam's Sacrifice
That you should require
My separation from you
Is what baffles me.
It feels bleak and hard
That I must walk out the door.
I know I started
This situation in truth
By my argument
And I think I'm right
But still, what a steep deep price.
And on top of it,
At the high capstone,
You want me to do this thing
As if willingly.
January 7, 2009 11:51 AM
First Posted May 28, 2009
oh!! your analogy!!!
ReplyDeleteoften i think about perception. we are so close to ourselves. if we were able to distance ourselves, through proximity of space and time, we would see all the effort, all the struggling - and yet the shore has always been within our reach.
sometimes distance between people is like this too. sometimes we can be in the same room and it feels like continents between us. sometimes it can be years between connections and yet if we were to withdraw, we would clearly see the bond still strong.
funny thing...
xo
erin
Separation is what forces consciousness it seems to me. I might be sentient and aware if I am close coupled, like a babe in the womb perhaps or like the ideal of two become one flesh (marriage), but it is when I am forced to define you as you and me as me that I become capable of self reflection and decisions concerning what I myself want. It also seems that it is one stream of infantile development to build ever more sense of a separate self. It must be shocking at several turns. It doesn't always turn out so well either. I think some of us are angry about this, and some really fearful. It is well known some of us never grow up in this lifetime.
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