i think the third and last entry for today
After dinner, which was dutifully on time, i still felt just blah, except for when S hugged me. i thought that if i took blue on a walk maybe i would feel better. Blue was ecstatic. i didn't want to go our usual route, i felt bored with it. So we went the other path and across the stream into the new subdivision of our development.
Up a big clay hill connecting the paths. It seemed odd to see the bulldozer treads and a few feet away on the bank to see foam flowers, ferns, etc all seeming to be at peace. At the top of the hill were large piles of rubble brought in as fill and beyond them a vista of flattened land, neatly divided by a few roads and alleys, stakes marking the lot numbers. Curb and guttering in, young trees standing at ready, a bit of sidewalk here and there. Everywhere planted neatly with grass to prevent further erosion. I found it immensely disheartening.
The new phase is on a higher hill than where our section is and i enjoyed the view looking over towards the river and seeing tree tops of another little ridge a ways off. i was wondering how far they had gotten towards making a pathway down to the river. Eventually there will be one and a park at the bank. i was thinking about the reforming of the earth at human hands and the reforming of me in some mysterious way and still feeling rather gloomy about both processes. but not really sure why i should feel so gloomy about the process involving me. A few weeks ago i was feeling relaxed and easy with it.
We went into an area that was seeded in the same boring grass, but had not been flattened out very much and walked down the slope. Well i walked, Blue bounded about and looped back to make sure i was ok, over and over. At the edges of the field i could see where the stubble had been burned after the big trees were cut and the rest bushwacked. Poking out here and there were the charcoal and blackened remains of tree limbs and roots. Feeling more sad and slightly disgusted, i finally just climbed over the carefully erected barrier that divided forest from development. As i did, i remembered a fantasy i had during adolescence. Over and over i imagined painting a picture of a forest on one of the walls of my room, and that the forest would become real and then i would vanish into the forest. i wanted to write a story about it, but i kept feeling guilty that maybe the heroine's friends and family would miss her and be sad. So i could never bring myself to do more than write one or two paragraphs.
i had the same strong desire at that moment to walk into the woods and fade away. i knew that i wouldn't, it was out of the question, but i surely wanted to. As Blue and i tromped around a bit i began to feel better. Not far from where we entered there was a drop of about 10 feet to a little stream, really just a rivulet. Large oaks clung to the sides of its walls in seemingly impossible fashions. Caves had been etched under the banks in some places. It was interesting to see in the drizzle of rain, what places were wet and which one's dry. A cray fish hole rose a foot above the stream bed like a silly chimney. Blue padded back and forth in the stream and finally plopped down in the mud with a large sigh. i laughed.
Then i climbed out of the little tiny chasm and looked about. i listened to the birds, and occasional airplane. Everywhere i looked was something unique, singular. Everywhere i looked were plants and things whose names i did not know. Everywhere there was something fantastic and in some way unknowable. i began to feel a calm and a peace. The sun was getting lower, but i stayed until i felt i could bring the feeling back with me.
Going back i began to think about my feeling upset over the last several days. i thought about my relative comfort with chaos in my household, at least compared to many other people. What is it in me, that rebels so strongly against order; that is so afraid of order?? As i walked along i tried to keep my calmness with me and the setting sun seemed to reward me with a few rainbows. A covenant i thought, that chaos will always exist, if one looks for it.
Later as i was driving to get last minute things for P's camping trip (which i could not do this week-end), i thought : i am getting up at the same time almost everyday. i am doing almost exactly the same thing for the first 45 minutes after i get up each day. More and more i am going to sleep about the same time each day. And now i am starting to fix and eat dinner at the same time each day. Where will it end!!?? (Evil laughter in the background).
Intellectually i know this is nonsense, (and see my fears as totally absurd) but somehow emotionally i am beyond afraid. In my mind i see the horrible world ruled by It, in Madeline L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time". Everyone is bouncing their ball carefully in the same rhythm, everyone is doing the same things at the same time. There is no room for the unique, the wild.
When i was more at ease with this i was trying to write a poem about my feelings, but it wouldn't jell. First i wanted to write a sing-songy thing about all the possible types of people i might become or not become, and feeling happily mutable. Then i had a memory about going to a Renaisance Festival when i was 11 or 12 (ie still a virgin, before my more wild days). i had my fotune told by an Egyptian Sand Reader. My mother was intrigued and so was i since we'd never heard of that type of fortune telling. He said that i had an unusual reading because i was half ice and half fire. That meant that i had the ability to analyze and see clearly (ice) and also the ability to dissolve and destroy (fire). i spoke up "And rebuild?" He said no, that wasn't my gift. But he also said that it meant that i would feel as if i was at war with myself and that keeping balance would be difficult. Since the fire and ice would tend to destroy each other.
i tried to write a poem about that and something about being grateful for guidance and that didn't really go anywhere either. i don't really either believe or disbelieve fortune telling per se. i mostly see it as a creative way to re-think situations. And for a while this experience spoke to me of my desire to understand and organize, have order, and my seemingly equally strong, or stronger(?) desire for chaos and disorder and spontaneity. The same day as my Egyptian fortune telling, i bought a scented oil called "Life is a Divine Ritual", which i wore for a good while.
i hope i can get through this fear of sameness. Surely, loving uniqueness can't be destroyed by tolerating a bit of order. That's what my head says anyway. The rest of me stays on the verge of tears.
Posted by briannawaters
at 8:51 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, 26 April 2005 11:54 PM EDT