Logic in the Passenger Seat

There are moments in my life where I have stood on the brink and looked over the edge and ...hesitated. Opportunities swirled around my ankles like an outgoing tide. They ebb and flow, and of course, new opportunities will come in again; that is the nature of the universe. As I watch them slip away, finite and unique, I sigh, assure myself it was for the best, I need to make sound, logical decisions.

Last night was not one of those moments. Last night, I came up to the precipitous perch on the edge of new experience, and instead of hesitating, over-thinking, and fretting away the minutes, hours, days, until the decision was made for me, I jumped in with both feet. There are a few moments in my life when I can pinpoint this precise position, and I want to keep pushing myself past the point of comfort and security.

Feel your way through things. My therapist keeps giving me this advice. I'm a thinker. A ponderer, a puzzler, a real and rigorous ruminator. (Or would it be ruminatrix? I think I like that one better.) Last night, I leapt. I tumbled headlong into sensation, not sense.

I knew from the moment I met her, there was something different about the fae creature I saw last night. I do not know what it was, specifically, in that moment when our eyes first met and our grins reflected one another. The only two talking caught behind a freight train in the rain. A pleasant conversation, a gleam of something more interesting, and it seemed to be nothing more than an incidental encounter. A single-serving friend. (She kept using that phrase last night. This morning. Whatever. I had to look it up because I couldn't remember the reference. (In my defence the only time I've seen Fight Club was back in high school and most of the film was spent wrestling RJ and Scottie for the best spot on the couch.)) Much to my surprise (which the hyperlogical side of me wants to qualify and quantify, to weigh and winnow through, to understand the WHY) despite our not exchanging good contact information (I had a business card with a website and generic email address to go on; she only had a name, and not a given name), she found me and decided that we would be friends.

I tend to look at myself and ask, Why me? Why do remarkable, curious, awesome people want to know me? Why did my wife text me when I missed my first practice? How can a line of poetry and a quote from a tv programme cement a relationship? What is it about me that made her seek me out? I told this one I felt so commonplace next to her. I heard her stories and felt, this is a person I would create in fiction, not a person whom I would meet, flesh and bone, blood and soul, on the street, and hear their stories. I don't understand what it is about me that people seek me out, it is strange, novel, foreign, and daunting, but last night I realised I should not worry about it so much. I should just accept it, graciously.

It turns out, it's hard not be graciously accepting of people insisting they want to be around you when one is wrapped up in the most magnificent cuddle puddle imaginable. With people who accepted me as a stranger in their midst, who were ostensibly all strangers to me, where despite being in a place I'd never been with persons I never met, I felt completely, totally, beautifully safe. And I trusted just a little bit. It's been so long since I did that.

I made my choice. I took that chance. I jumped off the ledge. I plunged into feeling. And it was wonderful.

The girl with the generous heart

Once upon a time there was a girl with a very generous heart. She was not very pretty, nor was she very lovable, but she was clever and loyal. However, she was not wise. And so she gave her heart away too often and foolishly.

One day the girl met a bird. The bird was very pretty, but he had a crooked wing and could not fly. The girl with the generous heart took the bird in and fed him and protected him from the things that prey on the weak and the lame.

The girl kept the bird near her, sharing everything she had. Many people asked the girl why she cared for a bird that could not fly, and the girl with the generous heart always responded the same way: ‘This bird is my friend. Yes, he cannot fly, so I protect him. His friendship is more than enough repayment for the little things I share.’ The girl with the generous heart worked hard, making sure that there was always enough so that the bird with the crooked wing was well cared for and happy.

The girl saved every penny she made and eventually she had enough to buy the bird a new wing. She went to a shop where she could purchase a new wing, and she picked out one that was beautiful, like the bird who was her friend. The new wing was very expensive, but the girl with the generous heart did not hesitate to buy it. It was perfect and she was so excited to get home to show the bird his new wing.

However, when the girl with the generous heart got home and showed the bird what she bought, the bird with the crooked wing flew into a rage. He said terrible, hurtful things to the girl with the generous heart. The bird with the crooked wing accused the girl of secretly hating him, of being ashamed of him, and of wanting a new friend, because the only reason to give the bird a new wing would be so he could fly away. The bird said that the girl with the generous heart must not really love him, and that she must think he is not good enough to love with his crooked wing. He said that if she really loved him she would accept his crooked wing and that the new wing she bought for him was just a way of saying that he would only be lovable if he were not broken.

The girl with the generous heart did not know what to do; she had only wanted to give her friend a gift, a beautiful gift that would make him happy. She left the new wing on the table near where the bird was perched in the corner, glaring at her, and she left the house. She hid for a time in the woods and she cried. When she could cry no more, and the sun was starting to set, the girl went back to the house.

The bird with the crooked wing was gone. As was the new wing the girl had bought for him. There was no note, no explanation. The girl with the generous heart would never see the bird again. But she could not forget all the terrible things the bird had said to her.

The girl with the generous heart was clever enough to know that it was her heart that had gotten her into this trouble. And so the next day, the girl with the generous heart went deep into the woods. She took her heart from her chest and buried it at the foot of a tree.

Ever since that day, the girl no longer had a generous heart. She became reclusive and lonesome, and she always remembered what the bird had said to her. She never looked for the tree where she buried her heart, and she lived a long and lonely life, her one small comfort the knowledge that she could never be so foolish again as to give away her heart where it would not be reciprocated.

an old piece

I remembered writing this years ago, and it seemed pertinent recently. So now I am posting it here after it collected dust on my much older blog.

I have grown and matured so much since then, and the broken relationship that this addressed is mended and better. But it was still a step for me.

[untitled]

What is there left to do
When the flow of words
From one vessel to the next
Has dried up
And there is nothing
Left to say?

What is there left to do
When the emptiness
Takes the place
Of that which was full
Of life
But now is nothing more than
A void?

06/03/2005