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Where is the Hero inside of me?
•December 3, 2009 • 4 Comments
Watched the movie ‘Defiance’ today. Later on, I cut my finger on a broken glass just minutes before work got to me and had me have another one of those overwhelming melt downs that have marked this year’s work life.
Decided to take a late evening shower to calm myself down and inmidst of worring about getting my little cut wet and bleeding again, I remembered how humbled I had felt not 3 hours ago watching that true story. Humbled by our human ability to overcome situations that seem hopeless, humbled by the acts of heroism that everyday people are capable of, humbled by what people have endured and are to this day enduring in order to stay alive.
There I was, a cut on my finger and swollen eyes, nothing compared to the trauma, cold, hunger and instability those men, women and children endured. Ashamed of my own weakness, I wondered who I would have been in that situation. Would I have risen above the crowd and lead? Would I have just followed along quietly, happy enough with trying to survive? Would I have let fear take over and reacted in some cowardly way?
For a moment I cannot help but wonder whether that’s what we secretly long for, a moment to show our own heroism, if not to the people around us, than to ourselves, giving us a reason, a justification for our existence that especially in our Western, Capitalist world seems to get lost in showing up for pseudo-important jobs, in keeping our hard earned real estate and materialistic possessions in impeccable shape, in filling our days with constant entertainment or at least what is left after having catered to whatever we feel will show the world that we are indeed Super -Mom, -Dad, -Spouse, -Friend, -Neighbour, -Employee.
But it’s not 1942, I am not a Jew in Nazi infested Europe. Nor do I live in any country where surviving is constantly on the forefront of my mind. On the contrary, I live in a place and in a situation where finding a bandaid before the blood drops hit the persian rug is about as much of an emergency as I can get.
Or is it? Are there really less situations where we can step up, show some true courage and leadership rather than hide away behind what only seemingly is so important. Or is it simply, that given the choice, we choose not to?
You can’t move ahead when you are curled up in a ball
•September 18, 2009 • 6 Comments1 am.
I am obviously up.
Which would be cool were I out partying, or doing anything but just not being able to sleep.
Thankfully I have already slept 4 hours or else I’d be in sheer panic.
Fine.
You win.
I am up.
At 1 am.
Thoughts are rushing.
Not the soothing kind.
Soothing kinds don’t rush.
Don’t cause sweat attacks.
Nor trigger frustration.
Need to change scenery.
The bed’s too suffocating.
1.05 am
Lying on the couch.
Curled up the fetus position.
Searching for comfort.
Not finding any.
Just finding darkness laughing loud.
I am angry.
Another great way to feel at
1.05 am.
Wait a minute.
I am no baby.
So why look like one,
feel like one,
be one?
Honestly.
Silly.
Completely not useful.
1.09am
I am up.
Standing.
Tall.
Feet steady on the ground.
Head held up high.
Shoulders wide.
This is me.
Standing strong.
See me darkness?!
I am up at
1.09am.
1.12am
Back to bed.
The Gift of Writing
•August 28, 2009 • 4 CommentsFour months ago I had came to the conclusion that my ability to put life into written words was a gift. It was a conclusion reached based on a vision, an experience that presented itself to me in a time when silence was all that governed my day. I decided that I was going to write. Not just because I wanted to, not to make a profit, but because I was given a gift, a powerful gift, and I was wasting it.
Today, back in the claws of everyday working life, I was challenged by a troublesome flood of uneasiness. It left me feeling very anxious and since I was alone, I decided to try and capture the events in writing, to enable me at least a little sense of being in control. Later, I showed it to a friend, looking to explain what had occurred. ‘You described it really well’, he said after, to which I responded ‘well, considering the circumstances I was in, I didn’t do too bad I guess’.
It wasn’t the circumstances that diminished the quality of my writing.
As I wake up in the middle of the night with a replay of that dialogue in my head, I realise that I’ve failed it. I have failed my gift, failed to honor it. And I realise that it wasn’t just this time. I have forgotten the conclusion I reached five months ago.
It’s almost 4 am as I type these lines. The world around me is silent. Perfect time to remember, to ask for forgiveness, and to do what I was born to do.
Arrived again
•August 27, 2009 • Leave a CommentAlthough I can’t always tell how I get here, I always recognise when I have arrived. There is no mistaken the heavy chain that is pulled tight around my stomach, the shivers on my skin, the dull pain in the heart and the rain barrels that have spilled and are only held back by a single warrior unwilling to open the flood gates.
Sometimes I wonder whether it’s the opposite end of a successful fight. Whether it’s the place where I run to when I loose confidence in my own ability to win whatever battle I am in. It’s better than dying, and in a rather strange way its power is comforting, a reminder that yes, I am still alive, for why else would I feel the suffering? It is also the place where others may find you, recognise a need, and are quick to help, even though they never meet your need, for only you can accomplish that. And I know it too. Yet in this place, knowing this, only highlights this rotten place more.
So, what is there to do? Wallow in the temporary comfort which only feeds the lack of confidence, heck call it Love, for myself? Listen to the voice that soothens, lets me know that if I just give in, that eventually the light will reach me again? That it is ok to to be small, insignificant, pitiful? That having others take care of you, like a baby, even if you are old enough to have your own? To have had your own?
I’ve been down that road before. It does lead back to light, even to my own light. But it reminds me of the Neverending Story, where the more he gives in the more he forgets and even though I may be in this place, again, I don’t want to risk not remembering that the light is there, that it is within me, and that I don’t need to keep arriving here.
And so, as these lines come to an end, I look around, and find myself in a beautiful late summer morning. I smile and reach for the sun.
He is baaaaaaaack!!!!!
•August 24, 2009 • 4 Comments5.15am and the alarm rips me from my sleep. My new morning routine isn’t habit yet, which means I am actually still asleep when the beeping starts. I roll over, slap my hand onto the disturber, and knowing that I have my cell alarm set for 5.45am, collapse back onto my mattress.
But the mind also got the wake up call. And so the internal dialogue of what I could get done, if I got up, starts. I open my eyes and look outside into the dark night sky. Still rather sleepy, I see a set of three stars perfectly aligned. They start to register in my head…… ‘just like….. na….. it’s too early…… couldn’t be….. but still….. maybe…’
I turn my head a little to give me a wider angle, and there I see him, in full, magestic beauty watching over my sleep.
Orion. Is. Back.
With full vengeance and as he jerks me to my feet, I can’t hide my excitement at an old, old friend returning. Yesterday I prayed for one, and I got two. This morning there’s a third. Tears of Gratitude roll down my cheeks.
‘Summer is coming to an end’ rushes through my mind but vanishes quickly. Instead I say:
“I can’t believe you are here already. I remember being a little sad seeing you hardly rise above the night’s horizon, knowing you wouldn’t rise again for many moons. It seems like yesterday. I missed you. I am so glad to have you back, the timing is perfect. So much has happened while you were gone. The path was difficult and often lonely. But I got here, and now for the next 6 months, I’ll have you to walk beside me. Thank you.”
I think of other friends who will appreciate Orion’s return. And I think of friends who may discover him for the first time. Then I expand my circle of awareness out further, further than ‘friends’.
“Orion is back”, I whisper gently as I share the news.
What the heart builds naturally
•August 22, 2009 • 2 CommentsI am but I am not.
Both.
None.
And yet it’s a beautiful morning. One that I have had many of in the last months. One that reaches out and gently touches my face, wrapping me up in a calm that through the day I’ll have a hard time hanging on to. I look at my last blog post, I study the date, read the comments (Thank you).
Am I still the same person who wrote those lines? How would I even tell? Yes, they do seem familiar, more so, they seem mine, feel mine. So do the comments, seem for me, move me, trigger questions like ‘wonder how they are doing / what he has been up to / what she is working on / when I get to see her again’.
I had a Skype conversation with one of the commenters the other night. It felt so good. And it goes to show that time can’t kill what hearts build naturally. It goes to show how little a step it takes, to reconnect, to laugh, to thank God for having been blessed.
“Are you still writing?”, was a question.
“I cannot Not write”, I responded. Some things don’t change. And it goes to show that time can’t kill what the heart builds naturally.
Yes.
It’s been a long journey and there’s still a long way to go. But it’s time to open the doors again, gently, and peek out into the virtual world. It’s time to start sharing again.
Anybody there?
With eyes closed
•April 5, 2009 • 20 CommentsYou don’t need to lay your ears on the ground
Nor let your hand glide over the brown earth
to feel life’s heartbeat beat within you.
Just close your eyes and listen,
Without expectation, without need
Just quietly as if there is only this one thing to do
Until the chains of time crumble to dust and
Are picked up by the winds and forever dispersed,
Leaving a burning sun to rise within you
Flooding your body with the brightest light.