Monthly Archives: April 2016

Through the looking glass

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I generally have a good handle on my emotions but circumstances of late have made that handle much more difficult to grasp.  I feel like I have boarded a train that has sped into a murky tunnel and I have no idea what awaits me on the other side.  Perhaps that is the most difficult part for me since I usually have a well thought out plan and I feel, now, like I am slightly clueless.

Alice had the benefit of being able to see beyond the glass into the world she was able to observe.  Her situation gave her the advantage of knowing what awaited her on the other side and any foresight into a situation is welcomed knowledge.

It is difficult, having moved forward into that mirror, feeling gravity pulling me in the rest of the way and, blindly assuming that the other side will be as beautiful as it is in my dreams.

I can only continue through that looking glass and hope that my intuition and my gut are leading me the right way and that the fate I am wishing for awaits me on the other side.

alice

‎”Alice through the Looking Glass” Sculpture located in Guildford’s Castle Grounds.

 

It’s not about the distance

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shoes-worn-out

You see my shoes,

and you think they might fit you.

You may even wrongly assume

that they had very little wear,

and you could walk much further than a mile.

But my treads are worn,

reduced to a thin layer of rubber,

marred by a life of experience.

Perhaps my shoes are similar to yours,

maybe even close to the same size,

but my shoes will not fit you,

as I expect yours would not feel comfortable on my feet.

This road has been mine to follow,

as your trail was carved out for you.

Conceivably, our winding paths have crossed on purpose,

but your journey is yours, as mine belongs to me.

And as much as you think my shoes will fit,

your feet were meant for your shoes

just as mine were meant for me.

I hope one day we will share a walk,

and our shoes will take many steps together.

And when that day comes,

I hope we walk much further than a mile.

(image credit)

Has anyone seen my patience? I seem to have lost it.

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I used to be a very patient person.  I was never fidgety while waiting in a line.  I knew my turn would come eventually and I was okay with that.

As the years have passed, I now understand where my mother was coming from when she used to say  “my patience is wearing thin”.  Perhaps it is somehow a right of passage that we are less apt to wait today than we may have been a couple of decades ago.  My patience these days resembles something like the onion-skin paper we used to trace pictures when we were in high school.

There are still moments when I am okay to wait, moments that are fleeting and that I know will pass relatively quickly.  But I am currently caught in a circumstance where I feel completely helpless and have no choice but to sit back and wait for information to come to me.  I feel horribly powerless and that is not a feeling I am accustomed to experiencing.

hurry up and wait

(image credit)

It’s hard to let go.  It’s difficult to convince myself that things are going well at the other end when my imagination continues to conjure hundreds of possible scenarios.  And my lack of patience only fuels the fire of anxiety as I am forced to bide my time until I get some news.

Until then, I shall consume myself with projects to try to keep myself busy enough so I can quell the even more impatient creative writers in my head.  My own restlessness is hard enough to deal with….they will make this waiting period intolerable.

 

 

Wait for the feathers

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“Some days you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue.” ~ J. Andrew Taylor

Pigeon-on-Statue

(image credit)

Many of our days are inherently better than others.  On those precious days we are the pigeon.  We are free to fly, the wind lifts us and lets us soar and we feel like nothing can bring us down.  We are above all of the little problems that life presents.  We gain strength and power as we fly.  We are able to stop when we want to and simply observe life at its best from a lofty perch, but we are also able to spread our wings and rise even higher on the warm currents of life.

Some days, however, that magical wind seems non-existent and our wings seem to fail.  On those days, we are the statue.   We are a solid mass under the weight of our own problems.  We feel like we are stuck and there is no room to move.  We feel stagnant and are rooted in our place, only able to watch life pass us by and not feel like we can participate.  We are heavy with worry and cemented by fear, feeling like the world is doing nothing but looking at us and simply passing us by.

On the days we are the pigeon we have to remember to empathize with the statue.  And on the days we are the statue we have to revel in the thought of what it is like to be the pigeon.  To truly embrace all of life, we have to be willing to see it from the perspective of the bird and the bust.  We have to understand that life is not always going to let us soar but we are never going to be stuck in one place for long if we break free of the mold we created for ourselves.

Life will ground us.  It will root us in our place until it sees fit to allow us the capacity to fly once again.  And in those moments that we feel fixed in a certain spot in our lives, we just need to wait for those feathers to grow large enough to carry us into our next chapter.