Instead of wondering

Images from Lucy's album

I have this desire to capture my thoughts and feelings as they arise in moments of experience here in the country of my birth, in the town where I grew up, among the people – family and friends – that were an integral part of my life for the first 19 years of my life in this physical form.

I so want to hold these moments to the light of awareness and ask questions such as:

Who was I then?
How did I really feel then?
What did I really think then?
Who is asking these questions now?
Why does she want to know?
How did this event shape me? What did it leave in me? What did it create? What did it destroy?

I want to know where all the fragments of that moment are. Where did they disperse? Where did they collect? Who has them? Will I ever get all the bits together again? What would that feel like? Will it be momentous? Will I be frightened by it or encouraged?

I know I shall not pine for it but there is a certain nostalgia that I cannot seem to shake off. Why?

I sometimes feel like I am an observer, quite apart from who I was, looking into the times of my past, transfixed. I feel somewhat disconnected though not completely.

It is an odd, sweet, musty, haunting, slightly disturbing feeling. There is so much of my past that was painful for me or at least that is what I mostly feel about the past.

Yes, there were joyous moments, triumphant moments, moments of childhood abandon and teenage thrills but they are overshadowed by traumatic episodes, so frequent and so terrifying and that never seemed to end.

I cannot be certain that the past is no longer with me. If anything, these oddly nostalgic moments persuade me that I have never fully left the past and this can be disconcerting at times.

I wonder if I shall always feel this way? I wonder if there will come a time when I will no longer feel this tug of emotions to my past?

Ah Lucy, you surprise yourself though not me! You do know, of course, that you decide exactly what your experiences will be, exactly what will happen to you. So, why wonder? Unless, of course, you are not yet ready to choose? Is that what this is about?

Yes, I am sure that’s exactly what this is about.

There’s one thing about making choices, Lucy. You don’t have to do them straightaway. There’s nothing wrong with not being ready.

That’s true but sometimes, the delay is more debilitating than energizing and so, for that reason, I realize that I’d rather make the decision sooner than later. Not always, but increasingly so.

After all, it is fear that prevents me from making the decision. Fear that:

I might make the wrong one
That I’m forever bound by it
That I will never be able to reverse it or make a different one

Yes, Lucy, it’s always fear of one form or another. But, you are well and truly on your way to recognizing fear in its many forms, even the more subtle forms. That is your awareness.

Shall we learn again the language of love?

 Image from http://price.baltiblogs.com

We watch time
We fill the spaces in between
with attention to random thoughts


Some take us back 
to the early years
when we commenced our
walking journey

Some refresh the memory
with recent history

But always 
there are feelings
that rock the thoughts
captured by attention


Who knows what goes on in the minds
of those who do not speak?

We rely on spoken language for clues
We rely on behaviors too
But most of all, and increasingly,
we rely on words

They provide us with shortcuts.

not always reliable

often distorting or hiding
unspoken messages

We must learn again
to communicate
without words
in the silent, dynamic language of
gazes into
and away
of 
advances 
and retreats
of
postures
and gestures
of 
contact
and avoidance
so that,

when once again, 
we employ words
they shall be
of
great wisdom
great awareness
great patience
great accuracy
for we will have gained
some mastery over
Attentiveness - 
the language of love