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the eye
November 11, 2005
ok.
i've always had a vision in my mind of standing in the eye of a hurricane, in quiet and stillness, looking up at the walls of cumulus clouds stacked high around me. i can feel the sense of intimidation, but also of control in the knowledge that i could either remain an observer untouched by the maelstrom of rain and wind and debris, or that i could tie a rope around my waist and plunge through that wall from time to time, just for a moment, knowing i could pull myself back to safety.
i never feel like i come out of the storm that is my life; the storm that i have made of my life; the storm that i have let my life become; the storm and the life that repeatedly spin out of my control; the storm that raises a deafening roar in my own mind, voices in the howling of the wind.
there's no holiday, no weekend, no sick day that frees me. i'm always out in it, sometimes fighting the wind and waves, sometimes just lost. i can't find my way out of the storm, and i'm not even sure there's an edge. i can't find my way to the center, and i have no rope or buoy to guide me.
but something was different this morning. i woke to calm, as if some trick of wind and wave had carried me in the night, and the storm had spit me out into the stillness at its heart.
today is a holiday from work, but without the guilt of being self-imposed. there was the hangover, and i slept in just a bit, not for the usual reason of seeing no hope in the day, but because i saw an unusual potential in it, and i needed to be able to make the most of it.
i thought of coming to the coffeeshop this morning, of being one of the people i always see that spend the day reading, working, maybe creating. i see some of them are as wind-whipped as i am. but i catch glimpses of some of them through the rain and darkness, and they're in that eye, in the calm. and, i can see their lives in the context of time, time in the context of their lives.
i rarely have that sense of my life and the passage of time being concurrent and intertwined. i feel myself moving through something, but yet i'm somehow not tied as i should be to the turning of the earth beneath me, the light of the sun, or the pull of the moon.
but something's different today. it's not that repeated feeling or self-deception that i'm going to change my life starting... now, or that everything is suddenly going to turn around, or that i'm going to be happy now, or that things will miraculously begin to resolve themselves.
no, i only know that this is today, and maybe it's only for today. it's just the eye of the storm, and in a way, that's better. i'm not trying to disbelieve the storm, not trying to pretend it'll go away, or that i can dive into the waters and survive it. but i'm not lost in it either, and i feel that control that's in my vision, this feeling that i can move with the storm, staying in the eye, staying safe but not numb. and here, in this calm, just for now maybe, time and my life seem to be back in sync.
today, the sun shines. clouds move over its face and past, thoughts move through me and past me. the earth turns and shadows swivel and sway, and words fill pages. the wind blows the hair of the girl on the porch, and i breathe. the ice in my tea melts, and i feel time here around me, neither of us pressing or blaming the other. cars and people, blood in my veins. dust floats in streams of light, synapses fire.
there are still things to be done here, but it's quiet in my mind. i can move, but be at rest. i think a little of tomorrow, the day after, and monday. will i lose this feeling?
the storm in my vision never dies. it moves over the face of the earth eternally, continually fed and driven by jet streams and currents and warm water, the flapping of wings, the soft breath of saying "love," the percussive gust of saying "hate," the starting and stopping of the beating of innumerable hearts.
and i imagine myself walking within it, mathing its pace, staying in its center. i imagine today.
Posted by Rob at November 11, 2005 01:19 PM