protection

I was thinking, or was I being thought? Good question. When a whale in the wide open ocean, or a stag within forest cover, or, even the frog I found in my kitchen this morning, looks at me, I do wonder who is looking at who, or is it whom? The wee frog shifted its unrestrained eyeballs this way, that, up and down, over and above and wotwot, unlike my looking, which is forwards, pretty much. Such a limitation, I said to said frog, as I lifted it’s cold wee body out into danger, aka, the outdoors. How it got in infiltrates my thinking. Not that I mind. We are all travellers, from one season to another, from one state to another, from sleep to awareness, from one birthday to the next. But this frog stopped me, thought me. Beyond the how-the-hell-did-you-get-here questioning (and I am quick to beyond myself from that poibntless question) I wondered about the help thing. My help. I did not squeal nor pull back in revulsion and call the fire brigade or, worse, pest control. No, indeed. I hunkered down, best I could, and watched its eyes, felt its fear as it froze on tile number 17. I only know this because, in my oldness it helps to count my way in the dark. I liked being 17. Finally I was free of curfew and about to find the damn lunatic with whom I fell in love, and who fathered five astonishing individuals. I digress.

We all walk singular. Oh yes, we join others, conjoin with a few, stick with one or two, but, even within those comforting boundaries, we are still singular. I am still me, and that me can cause much eyeball switch. Change comes, to one, to another and the timing is always off, or so I have found. So how hard it can be to retain self when others want, or appear to want, me to change shape in order to fit. We all build our protections, and, yet, when we meet a rigidity, we are thrown. And what we do, all of us, initially at least, is to doubt ourselves. What did I do wrong? Is my change a bad thing? And, sadly, many of us slink back into the dark of those unnerving questions. I certainly did. But, as we do that slinking thing, which is, to be clear, safe passage, we lose our singularity and our voice is silenced. We have watched this scenario played out in many films, cheered the one who rose, naked and scared and singular into their own light, risking the wrath of anyone at Ground Control.

It takes courage to stand strong. I don’t know the way, can’t find the words, have no plan beyond the truth that I will stand for this no more, allow this no more, will not bend my shape. I know this place and, trust me, singularity is not single. Not at all. There are a gazillion singulars on heretofore unknown paths, feeling the fear, pushing on in trust and faith. You will find them, as I did.

As the frog found me.

I like a challenge which is just as well considering recent events. Although I, like everyone else, can plummet the depths of fear and confoundment, I can also rise quick quick once I spot myself down there in the dumps, all sog and sniffle. Get back up here you daft woman and check out the light. Look how much there is! Down there is dark and cantankerous and, besides, you are beginning to dissolve. I can see that from here.

I yank myself back up because there is something rather embarrassing about being the centre of such attention. She, the upper me, could sit there all day. She could drop rocks or eggs or derisive comments and I could not stop her, nor defend myself against her as she works hand in hand with gravity. I am, after all, stuck in the middle with clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right, a portrait of me I would rather not see on Facebook. Once back inside the light, I look down. Why did I ever think being soggily there would help? I know not but I did not consciously lower myself down. It took weeks, months in truth and I hardly knew I was becoming slippage. Inch by slimy inch I got used to the darkling, found it pleasantly concealing even, so that, by the time I was rock bottom, it felt like protection. I could hide, did hide and then She found me as I knew she would eventually. I guess she missed me.

It is over 5 months since my lord and master went underground; 3 or so weeks since the rather dimwitted abusive caller was pounced upon by the Malevolence Police and a few days since the Breast Clinic journey. It feels like I am free now, no longer a fatalist, and back in the light, not one I have seen before. It has changed, shifted beyond the old way of being and I look around me in awe. Having followed Himself’s light for centuries, I am now presented with own. What will I do with it? How will I use it, cherish it, work with it? Well, I don’t know just yet but what I do know is that, for now, for a while perhaps, I will employ my inner Alice and walk in curiosity, wide-eyed and open-hearted. How strange life is. We lose someone and feel horribly alone with our fears and doubts, with the who-the-hec-am-I-now thingy. Hesitation, the inability to stop monkey-mind chatter, frustration, anger and the quieting of natural laughter and joy. The dumps, in other words. It must be, I tell myself, because such a massive shift in my tectonic plates is bound to destroy before it heals in fresh alignment.

I balance on a new wire and I must keep that balance for I do not want to fall. Watching a tightrope walker is almost impossible for me unless I am behind about 10 cushions and with my hands covering my face. Falling seems inevitable. Hundreds of feet above the ground and not a wing in sight. How can anyone think of this as fun and, yet, fun is the beginning of the word. Fun. Ambulist. A fun walker? Ok, I will accept that. Although I am not and never will be a funambulist in the full meaning of the word, I like it, like speaking it out, like the fact that it is the opposite of fatalist. I believe that every single move of my life, however domestic and ordinary, is under my control; not what happens but how I respond to what happens. Everyone will meet tragedy and disaster, will slump with despair and loss of hope, will fight against the inevitability of a mind-blowing change. It is natural, understandable, acceptable and many other ables for we are soft warm loving human beings who resist mind-blowing changes in the main, who long for what we once had, not because it was comfortable but because we knew it so well.

Now we are required to walk in a new light, one we don’t yet understand; one we have never handled before, nor worked with, unsure, unsteady and hundreds of feet above the ground so well travelled by our beforefeet. Now we are funambulists and once we have found our own balance we will climb back down to the goodly earth with a confident step, our caps tilted, our backs straight and our wide eyes open to whatever this new life has in store.