The Song is You

In spite of an overall very positive series of events lately, I sometimes still feel like a guy who's had a bad fall. I wander around for a few minutes getting my bearings back. At some point, tunnel vision opens and I notice that my shirt's ripped and my arm is a bit scraped up. These things happen. Change the shirt, swab the arm. In disaster movies, you've seen the placid faces of the injured: there's no pain, no injuries. Often you can see or hear the fugue playing in their head, those phrases or gestures grow poignant as they're done again and again. Later comes the panic of realization that some parts were bruised and torn and might be in peril.

I've spent my life smacking myself about when I've fallen short of my expectations or tried to exceed them. The process isn't as severe as it used to be thanks to a lot of work over the years. But it was in essence my fugue state. It's ironic that there's something so loud and constant that is difficult to hear. Luck put me onto my own background noise and assumptions. Meditation helped me hear and clarity these harsh voices and strident themes. Since I'm basically as tough as a donut, I thought I needed a less destructive atmosphere, a healthier backdrop. For the past years, I've worked on softening the monster shouting in my ear. Among the various tricks in therapy, it's possible to replace destructive voices with ones that love you. You might find it amusing that one voice (and face) who helped out initially was that of my midget league basketball coach, no kidding. (I do think that's what the league was called back then.) The voice inside has been altered and there's a healthier burble about doing better, doing my highest work That's good to have rumbling around inside. My coach's thick face sometimes pops up and nudges me toward what I know is the right thing when I don't deliver on a promise to myself. Of course I want to please that nice, disappointed man.

Trying to communicate what I see and feel has always been important to me. I'd like to let others see what I see but I've locked myself down. It's a waste of time to do anything other than unlock myself as tempting as Understanding might be. No one else sees why I'm so in love with so many things in the world. What that has meant is that there are have been too many people who could only guess at what I felt, too many who hoped I loved them rather than know it from me. Some do know I suspect but have still waited patiently for more of me to emerge. Patiently.

That's ultimately what I've been trying to fix, that paralyzing inner fugue and anything that sustained it. At some point, the responsibilities of health seems more attractive to me than the responsibilities of injury and limitation. It's a hell of a thing being injured. It's worse when you sustain and accommodate the injuries in your life because you have some twisted sense they'll serve you better than wholeness. That rancid tune repeats and becomes your song, your background music, the only music you hear.

I am working on rooting out what's not me, what I've taken on out of fear, confusion, weariness or habit. I like to think that I'm not torn or shattered. That I'm aware enough to assess what I experience and not be subsumed. Everything that life has to offer does not lead to injury. You've seen this elsewhere as I've tried to work this through here. The dusty themes that had been protecting me, blocking me from my life have gotten so quiet, that often I hear something simple and unbidden, building and rising, a loopy birdsong of surprise and delight- my new music.