11.05.2008

Clarity

I suspected it, but I couldn’t have known for sure, not until the veil lifted, not until the deed was done, not until the declaration of President-elect was announced.

I’d felt this election was holding me hostage, sucking up all my energy and setting my imagination to inert, but only upon waking the day after can I confirm my suspicions.

For the first time in months my mind slipped into creative meditation leaving the gnawing realities to wait patiently for my more wakened state. I saw images of fairy tale walks, heard characters telling me their stories revealing where I must take them and why. I stopped despairing over all that hasn’t been working and set a plan for the next step forward, how one foot in front of the other can be enough.

The part of my brain conditioned to worry is still frightened, untrusting, uncertain. It doesn’t believe that I’ll hold this energized view for longer than it takes to type this sentence. It has a bit of experience with how these moods can come and go.

But I’m tired of how I’ve been living, how I’ve not been living but simply staying alive. And I figure if Obama can rise up to become president, I can manage to type a few words upon the page each day, can line up a photo job here and there, can plan a dinner party to gather friends who will want to insist that the traffic to cross town is too heavy, that there’s work to be done or sleep to be had.

But I will insist.

If nothing else, hosting a small election party reminded me of the power of shared experience, how we can all get by in singularity, but that the quality of certain moments can be so very heightened when in the company of others.

Of course the right others, not just any others.

By the way, I’m looking to line up a few more right others.

I’m done with shallow breaths, wanting once again to fill my lungs to their fullest. And I want others to do the same, because there’s been too much aching occupying our days, too much focus on what we can’t control over what we can, too much hopelessness. I’ve been the guiltiest of all. I know it. But it’s time to embrace the new chapter. Please come along.

3 comments:

Girlplustwo said...

amen. i'm with you, sister.

Woman in a Window said...

I'd say amen because I woke up that next day breathing, eyes wide. But the day after the weather changed and that was enough to bring me down. Too easy, this changing of direction. I like your direction more.

sweetsalty kate said...

Beautifully, perfectly put. It's infectious even way up here, for all us canucks watching the action from the northern nosebleed section.

well done, friends! :)