Who was I before they told me who I was, and how I was, and what I was? That’s a line from an online guided meditation I stumbled upon, and the question is provocative. I thought I had become comfortable with who I am, but now am feeling as though my comfort is giving way to a deeper curiosity. I know who I think I am, but do I know who my heart believes I am? Inquiring minds want to know.

The guided meditation was one that I stumbled across on YouTube, and it was about the Shadow Self. I found it intriguing, and it talked about the shadow part of the Self, the part that lurks without form in the subconscious but manifests in my consciousness as a formidable, pervasive, self-defined entity with intransitive mass. It was not invited, and is not welcome, but remains the most influential part of my psyche.

The meditation’s discussion of the shadow self emphasized that it is powerful because it has not been integrated with the conscious part of me, the part I am actively healing. Without integrating the shadow, however, there is a definite limit to how completely I can and will recover. The vision of the shadow offered is that of all the self-indictments that I have formed over the years, all the lies I have told, all the hurts I have rendered, all of the least attractive parts of my self. That made sense to me, and still resonates like a gong inside my head. It has helped me turn the corner on feeling alone and abandoned, and entirely bereft of friendship and solidarity, so when I woke up this morning I felt lighter and more “right”, less angry, less willing to pull the plug on my efforts to be whole and healthy.

Some of the monsters hiding in my shadow are things from childhood, the missteps and precocious arrogance of a small being in a large and confusing world. That can be forgiven, and I believe I can do that. I have never been able to forgive myself for much of anything, as though I should have know better at the age of 5, or even before. The memories are painful, not because I did wrong things but because I had nobody to say that it was OK and that I was not expected to be perfect.

Perfection was the unwritten goal of everything, and nobody ever told me that it was not a goal that could actually be achieved. Consequently, I never learned to make mistakes and own them. I refused to own them because I did not know there was grace and forgiveness; a mistake meant the love would be withheld or that I would be abandoned. That was a lie but it has ruled so much of my life, causing me to settle for less than I deserved, putting up with abuse, berating myself for imperfection at every turn. That is a monster in my shadow that has made me into a monster at times, but its days are numbered.

There are so many other shadow monsters, but I will get to them. Part of what I have gotten out of these reflections is that I have been left to figure out how the world works, how people work, how my brain works largely on my own. My parents didn’t get the handbook, so they did not give it to me. What they gave me, however, was their own trauma and their own confusion and pain, and I’ve been wrestling with that since I got here. That baggage is not mine, but I’m carrying it regardless. It’s time to unpack and settle into a rooted life experience, and not one where I’m still travelling.

So, back to the first question asked in the meditation, the one that has nearly blown my head from its connection on the brainstem: who was I before they told me who I was? I would like to believe that I was an incessantly curious, observant, and reflective critter who was a keen observer of everything around her. I remember people would say that I was very observant. I also remember telling the truth about things I observed, hypocrisies and inconsistencies. That did not earn me merit badges, and that is what they tried to silence. That’s still true today – that’s a large part of who I am, and people are still trying to silence it.

I have much work to do on this, but I am strangely excited about it. Apprehensive on a certain level, but more excited. The path awaits, and the shadow quivers.

This is one of those days when I don’t want to help anybody, don’t want to be a nice person. One of those days when I want to curse and beat at my own body for being what it is, when I want to give up on people who disappoint me, who cast me aside like the dried and crusty remains of yesterday’s crawfish on the lakefront. It was good while it was fresh. Now, the spicy succulence has long since evaporated, leaving only newspaper stained with the memory of a good time and long dead crustaceans.

I don’t want to be nice today. My nice has taken flight. I don’t want to bring good news to anyone, don’t want to spark activism, definitely don’t care if you walk the Camino after you’ve been so mean to me. I most certainly don’t have any fucks to give for seeking justice, or helping anybody figure out their racist complicity or anti-racist identity. It’s my day off.

I’m sure this mood will pass, but right now I’m not sure I want that. Here I am, one more time, when my phone doesn’t ring, there are no text messages, nobody is thinking about me and wondering how I am. Everyone is tending their own families, their own lives, wrapped up in the insular blankets of their own. That’s how people are, I suppose, but the ones I’ve been on the fringes of have been chanting songs about new ways and beloved community and one big family. Their hypocrisy may be worse than any others, as they shout that all are welcome here while locking their doors to make sure they alone assign value and worthiness to all who enter. Being approved for entry into my own house is galling.

I think I’m done. That could change, but right now I’m not willing to figure out whether this mood is due to medication deficit or some other chemical aberration. Right now, I am truly believing that people should do much better than they are doing. In the past couple of weeks, I have taken shots from my so-called chosen community of faith that I did not deserve, and do not have to tolerate. So, I won’t.

Stupid me volunteered to do something new, and write up a script for the worship service (such as it is) on Sunday. I did that, in spite of my laptop suddenly losing use of its power supply (I am attributing that to the solar storm a few days ago) and trying to get used to the committee “process” for completing the task. I finished it yesterday, but have heard not one word about it – not “got it”, or “we’ll take a look”, or “we’ll get back to you”. I guess it was done correctly, but have no idea. This is making me crazy.

I still have not heard from the dentist, and I have given up. They will have stolen thousands of dollars from me and I will still be in the same position I was in before I sold the house, with nothing. This is where I end up frequently – maximum effort to please other people, and winding up with nothing for myself. This is not acceptable.

It occurs to me that I have no friends, yet again. When things like this happen, as they have in the past, I suddenly look up and realize that I’m angry because all of the people to whom I have devoted so much energy are happily enjoying themselves while I am left with nothing. Whose fault is that? I suppose I still choose badly, but I have not found a way to restrain myself from giving my all to people who do not return the favor. Who’s the asshole?

Maybe some of this is a medication issue, since I have not been taking any at all. That’s not entirely new, and it’s been fine for several weeks, or so it seemed. Perhaps I was just in some kind of quasi-manic phase and was just giddy. Right this minute I don’t really give a hoot. I’ll begin taking the stupid meds again, but I will never be free of the resentment that I have to do so and I just want to be mad about it.

I don’t treat my close friends like afterthoughts, like things I deal with after I’m done doing the more important things in my life. For all practical purposes, they are the more important things in my life, although I am the first to admit that perspective has not served me well. But that’s fine. Nobody owes me a damned thing, and the older I get the less I expect from anyone.

Maybe, in the general and greater scheme of things, my anger is that I never got treated like I was worth stopping the world, or moving a mountain. My mother would make a way for me in various endeavors, but I was never allowed to forget that. And when it came to the bitter end, she took care of herself first. My father decided, finally, that he deserved better than her and that was not an unreasonable decision. But he left me behind, because it was too much trouble to deal with her and fight for me. It had always been too much trouble or too difficult to do that, so we had no relationship. And I had nothing. And I still have nothing in so many places.

Don’t tell me that you love me to make yourself feel better. Don’t tell me that you understand, that we’re like sisters, that you can relate when you think nothing of abandoning me when something you value more calls. It’s not that I think you should abandon them instead, but you could do both. Unfortunately, when it comes to blood family, people shut their doors to the outside world, to friends, to everything else. I suppose that’s human nature, or at least human culture, but I don’t know if that’s how it’s supposed to be. I don’t play like that.

Love has no hierarchy. It doesn’t value one heart above another, or at least it shouldn’t. Hormones possibly do that with parents and children, but the rest of it is human detritus and imagination. I love only a few people, and right now I’m not sure what that means. I like a great many more people, and those are the ones I have no trouble maintaining boundaries and even barriers when necessary. But I suppose my concept of love has been fucked up from the very beginning. I worshipped at the feet of the masters of incompetence in that arena.

There is a place in the soul of an artist where it hurts too much to emote, it’s far too painful to share the vision It’s a dark place, a shuttered place with blackout curtains and soundproofing. No light and no color. Nothing in or out, not even the usual garbage. There’s no dumpster fire, no volcano, and you don’t give a damn about your birdwatching or kids’ scout badges or your donation to yet another ineffective charity. Right now, life has to be on my terms, and those terms are…leave me alone. That might last an hour or a day or the rest of my time on this planet, I don’t know. I know that you have no trouble doing that when it suits you, so for now it suits me. Don’t ask me how I’m doing, don’t inquire about my health, don’t wonder about my dog. Don’t ask me if Mother’s Day was particularly brutal this year or if I’m homesick. Nothing I can tell you about who I am will cause you to change one damned thing about how you walk through this world, or do anything to make me more comfortable in it, so let it be. I’ll come out when I’m ready, or not. Until then, Leave. Me. Alone.

I want you to know that I survived, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just that reptile brain that said live, because that’s just what you’re supposed to do. Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, like I always do. Maybe.

I want you to know that you can’t kill me, can’t break me, can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do, but you also can’t make my heart beat. There were times when I thought I could die for you, but I have never lived for you, or for me.

I want you to know that I don’t know what I want you to know, and there aren’t enough words to make you understand who I am. There are only questions of what and why there is who and how, and there is not you.

You took something that did not belong to you, but was freely given. It was not a perfect offering but it was never supposed to be a sacrament. Bless me, for I have sinned, but sin is not part of my contract with you. Bless me in my imperfection might be something of value that you could offer, if you can find the way.

Like many others, you see my worth as a function of your satisfaction. There is no measure of success that I can provide, and no regret that I can summon. Your spiritual deficit is not my concern.

Your derision is boring, your lack of humility amusing. It’s useless to spend energy on CPR for the heartless, so I will no longer attempt to breathe life into you. You are lost to humanity, ensconced in your own grandiose fantasies of a world that exists only to make you happy, of saving a world you seek only to control.

I want to say that I wish you well, but that would be a lie, and it would also be incredibly futile. You will be fine, because you aren’t really alive in the first place.

I have gratitude for our paths crossing, but there is also incredible and unmerciful pain. Perhaps this is as it should be, but it feels like a consumptive flow of molten lava bubbling enflaming every vein and searing every cell in my body beyond recognition and definition every minute of every day without mercy or surcease. There is no mouth left to scream no voice left to offer sound. Perhaps this excruciating pain is the only way I will remember to keep the door closed, and remember that i do not need to welcome you here ever again.

My hope for you is that you are bound to your own horrific energy for all eternity. You don’t have anything I want or truly need, so I hope you take your twisted entitlement and misguided superiority to the underworld where it belongs.

I just had a PTSD moment, courtesy of a self-important, self-absorbed, intolerant and mediocre fool who fancies themselves a shining icon of superiority. She’s decided that I ama villain because I did not immediately drop everything I was doing to facilitate her request to do a charitable fund-raiser for her pet project. I am a horrible person, incompetent, prone to inaction and foot-dragging it seems. Where have I heard this before?

This is the script of idiots who believe they have servants at their beck and call, who see the rest of the world as existent solely to cater to their whims. This fine upstanding example of charitable benevolence has no problem treating the rest of us like crap if she doesn’t get her way. She is the clone of many a corporate drone who renders themselves judge and jury of their peers. I’ve got no time for that, and I’m not playing the game. I dealt with this in corporate America ad nauseum, and I am certainly not going to deal with it in a volunteer capacity. I’m done, although they don’t need to know that.

I’m not playing the game, but this is not a game. This is my life, and I’m coming into it a little late for my taste. But here I am, and I’m going to live on my terms. And my terms are this – you get nothing from me that I don’t choose to give. I owe you nothing.

That’s what I want you to know, that I owe you nothing. I do not enter into any of this with a balance due, but I deserve my just due when I pass GO. You are not deserving of my respect until you have earned it. I have nothing to prove to you. I’ve made it more than a half-century without your help, and I don’t need you to take it from here.

I’ve got a pocket full of spare change and some loose threads from the hole at the bottom, but worrying about what I might lose doesn’t slow me down. Believing myself to be a disappointment stops me in my tracks, and life passes by like a freight train on fire, all sturm und drung on its way to the end of the world. I make noise for the hell of it, and it never occurs to me that I am heard, much less understood. I am the owl hooting or its mate, and hearing only silence in the dark of the forest. I am the drummer who is off the beat, who has lost her own rhythm but still keeps someone else’s beat. How many beats make up the measure of integrity, of truth, of justice?

Are we gong anywhere, or is there where the rivers end? I cannot think my way out of this illusion, because it is a house of mirrors and I cant always be sure which image of me is the real thing. Is belief enough? Is faith enough? Is love enough? I am not sure, but perhaps wonder is enough, maybe awe is enough. Maybe stopping your heart from time to time in the incomprehensible imagining of the impossible is really the purpose of life.

I want you to know that even at the darkest hours of the night, whether that’s before the dawn or not, I’m not quitting but I’m not showing myself until I know who you are, and whether you can handle this ball of confusion, this light walker, this wounded healer with a broken heart. Everyone cannot see me because I sometimes hide from the light, and walk in the shadows. If you need to see me, you will. If you don’t need to see me, I will look monstrous and foreboding, and you will run. That is as it should be.

If you feel the need to run away, or push me away, you’re of the dark and I can’t stay there. Walk on, but retract your hooks; there is nothing for you here; the light is not for you. I would rather walk alone, and I no longer fear the solitary path.

First there was the word, they say. I have no words at times, but I have the one, clear note that calls to the heart of the Universe, before the words, before the thoughts. It is the essence of the soul, the last drop of the heart’s core, the base of being. The crystal clear statement of existence, where the answers to all the questions reside. It is a single drop from the well of all there is, and here I stand open-mouthed, waiting for the inspiration to descend but wondering if it has already come and maybe I’ve just forgotten.

It will be OK. That is the most profound of all my inspirational sentiments – it will be OK. I don’t know what OK looks like, or how I will recognize OK, but it will be OK. I have to believe that. I want you to know that I believe that, and if you don’t believe that believe that I believe it. That’s what I was told early on in my sobriety journey, and it got me through some tough days. I no longer question why. Perhaps that’s the key to getting me through the difficult days of this phase – do not question why. It will be OK. Don’t ask why, just believe.

For some reason, the realization that I’m not a prima donna, but still high maintenance, is coming to me. I suppose I’m high maintenance in the sense that certain things, seemingly unrelated or insignificant, are very important to me. Without those being just right I am a cranky girl. These are often first world problems, but so be it. I don’t drink adult beverages, I don’t smoke anything at all, I’m not a clothes horse or anything akin to a fashionista, I don’t take expensive vacations. I am somewhat of an audiophile and enjoy my tunes at home and in my vehicle, and I love books whether I read them in a timely fashion or not. I suppose when you have no income, that’s high maintenance but so be it.

There’s a writer’s group that recently sent out a prompt for an upcoming reading they’re putting together, and it seems rather interesting to me. “What I want you to know.” That got me thinking about how I might answer that. For a long time I didn’t really want people to know much, although I would tell someone at the bus stop my life story if given the chance, The problem, though, was that I didn’t really know my life story. I knew events and shared history, but I didn’t understand who I was or what was my own life story. Maybe I still don’t, but I believe I’m closer than I’ve ever been. It’s not only about what happened, it’s about how that made me who I am right now. I had no perspective in those old days, so I could have been reading a book written by someone else. These days, I am reading from my own book, my own experiences, from some place deep inside. The memories are no longer disjointed factoids attached only to anger and trauma. Most of the resentment has been replaced by curiosity and questions of why things happened the way they did, mixed with a fair amount of gratitude for it all.

I often wonder what my reality would be today without some of those experiences, no matter how insane or traumatic or hurtful. Would I have learned anything without them? Would I have become a good musician or a corporate success without the trauma and the genetic predisposition to being slightly left of center? Would I still lay claim to alcoholism and food addiction or would I be a pretty, feminine girl with appropriate measurements and children? Is who I am nature or nurture? Do I question still how I’ve turned out? On some levels, I suppose I do wonder if I’ve sold myself short.

There was a local author back in the day who frequently said that events in life are a crap shoot. The bullet wouldn’t have hit you if you’d been a few seconds faster or slower on the path, the car wouldn’t have hit you if you hadn’t swerved for the deer crossing the road. Chance explains so much, if that is where you’d like to put your faith, if you choose to believe that we’re at the mercy of the fates. The flip side of the coin, however, is that everything that we experience is the answer to a prayer, a manifestation of what we call to us. I’m not quite sure what to believe. Would I still be me if the wheel had turned one more click on the roulette wheel of life?

Belief is a loaded term. Faith may be a better way to describe the indescribable and illogical sentiment that something outside of ourselves has a part in our existence. Some of us believe in a sentient and supernatural being that controls us, others believe we control our own destiny but there’s some external force that makes our existence possible. Some of us think we are all that is, and we alone are responsible for everything that makes up our reality. Since none of us knows for sure, it mystifies me why some are obsessed with what garners everyone else’s faith. That’s not about anything but power and control, in my not so humble opinion.

But, back to the original question – what do I want you to know? I suppose I want you to know how confused I am about questions like the ones I described. I want you to know how frightened I am about whether I’ll be living under a bridge when I am very much older, whether I’ve thrown away all my chances of being secure in old age. I want you to know that despite my bluster and braggadocio, I’m a really small person who isn’t sure I’m right about much of anything, that I know much of anything, and that I’ll always be alone in my thoughts of what’s right and what’s wrong. I want you to know that I can’t add 2 plus 2 without a calculator but I can follow the money in systemic oppression and tell you who’s getting rich. I understand how the prison-industrial complex has replaced chattel slavery and how the mentality of supremacy has not changed one iota since this country was founded.

I want you to know why I don’t trust very many people and how betrayal of my trust has caused me to be a rageful marionette with a withering resting bitch face when provoked. I don’t forgive easily, and when I do I’m likely never to let you know that I’ve gotten past your abyssmal testament to being a second-rate human. I’m not leaving a crack in the door that should have never been opened n the first place, because you’re likely to invite yourself in for an unsolicited, and undesired, reprise. I’d rather be alone for the rest of my days than give you, or anyone like you – and you are not even a dime a dozen – the chance to use me so frightfully again.

If there was any one thing I could tell anyone, it’s that I feel as though I’ve ruined my life, wasted my time trying to figure things out instead of living. I have worried far too much about other people, about what they think of me, about how to please them. My ego has been oversized, my self-esteem undersized. I cannot please anyone, because their feelings are not in my control. I’m far too old now to attack what I enjoy with gusto, or with abandon, because I just don’t have the energy. Along the way, people have said I am strong but I have been very tired of being strong for a very long time. Now I just want to be happy but I don’t know if I have what it takes any longer.

I want you to know I am not sure I ever had a dream, only a destination that I believed was the one prescribed for me. Right now, I am closer to contentment and happiness without a job, without an income, without full physical health than when I conformed more to status quo. In my own neurotic way, I have been fighting against conformity all my life, have never wanted to be part of the proverbial rat race, never had the confidence to take the lead. If there had been words for neurodivergence and trauma-informed care in my childhood, I wonder if those would have been of some help or just another rigid container of someone else’s design.

I want you to know how deeply I feel things, and the rage is only a measure of the love. It is only recently that I am coming to understand that my heart is too large for conformity, and refuses to be contained by science and diagnostic manuals. If you can’t understand that, just leave me alone. That will make us both happier. Some of us were never meant to be here but I believe I chose very consciously to show up in this time, as painful as it’s been. I walk between the raindrops of time, and feel the pain of people I’ve never met.

I want you to know that I’m here for a good time, not a long time, but I’m keeping the records and telling the stories. Some things should never be forgotten, and I will not forget. I am no longer trying to understand, no longer looking for explanation. I’m just trying to live in the intention of now, the reality of this moment. Sometimes I get ahead of myself, and then fear rolls over me like a blinding and paralyzing torrent of water that blocks the light and steals my breath. This must be death, when the body is useless and all thought is lost.

I want you to know that I don’t always understand what I know, or what I want you to know. I want you to know that I’m not sure I can change a single thing in my reality, but that I am overwhelmingly sure I can’t change anything in yours. That’s your work, and it’s far above my pay grade. I want you to know that I fully understand the concept of powerlessness, and that it doesn’t mean weakness. Most of all, I want you to know that I will never give up on trying to get to wherever it is that I can do the most good, live the best life, and have the most joy no matter what I say in the darkest of moments. Y’all are stuck with me, high maintenance and all.

What is safety? You say this is my sanctuary but I feel less safe here than most other places. Can I trust you to not use your supremacy as a weapon? Can I trust you to believe that you could be wrong? I cannot trust you to use your fragility like a weapon so why should I trust you to not attack me with my own imperfection?

You say you do not feel safe, but what you really feel is uncomfortable.. What you really feel is the fear of authenticity, the terror of seeing yourself unmasked. I cannot have intercourse with you in the dark any longer. It is time to see and be seen and know and be known. It is a choice, but then it is no choice at all. The reality we share is unforgiving but somehow you have hot tea before bed.

I do not feel safe, but that isn’t important because this isn’t my house. You remind me that I’m a visitor, a visitor to whom you grant admission because…this is your house. You make the rules, you deal the cards. You are the myopic custodian who misses the dust in the corners and the carpet stains not because it is dirty but because it is well worn with the footsteps of the prophets who came before us all. But you hire new housekeepers to erase those footprints in order to create more room for your unoriginal story.

What have I done to make you distrust me? Is this a simple case of mistaken identity, me resembling someone from your past? From your ancestors’ past? From lessons you learned a lifetime ago? It’s funny because you resemble many from my past, like the arrogant white man who pretended to accidentally elbow me in the ribs in Tennessee, the many hordes of white frat boys who wanted to touch my hair, and who made pig noises as I walked away The bloated white arbiter who humiliated me in front of a room full of people because he could not have his way, so angry that his spittle landed on my lips, his bad breath hot on my cheeks. And there was only silence. You remind me of the good Catholic girls who remained silent when one of their kind called me a nigger with a supercilious smile on her face that spoke loudly of her confidence that no one would come to my defense. And there was only silence. You remind me of all of these inglorious vermin but still I show up, still I risk everything all over again, still I relive all these traumas and more to allow you to sit in judgment of me. And yet you feel unsafe.

Smiles and soft voices mean nothing. Assuring me of your impartiality and loyalty to the objectivity of policies means nothing. Reading literature, gathering data, discussing ad nauseum, formulating opinion means very little in the general scheme of things. Sympathy means less. Comparing your experience to mine is worthless, because we are not on the same playing field. Listening means a great deal, saying that you could be wrong means even more. Sitting down, allowing me to lead – even if imperfectly – means even more. Believing me when I tell you how uncomfortable I feel at times in your house, and not convincing me that I’m seeing it wrong, means everything. I don’t expect you to understand what you have not experienced, but I expect you to believe what I am telling you. I expect you to believe that I’m not living in the past and that something is happening here that pains me.

What is peace? For some, peace is comfort, the status quo, the way things always were. Peace is no fighting, no competition. Peace is the satisfaction of having control, having things your way. For me, that’s not the real world. We are hard-wired to be in conflict, to compete, to strive. Peace is always temporary because that’s just not who we are. Attempting to force peace on people in conflict is often nothing more than a power struggle, no different from any militaristic conflict save for the weaponry. But know that any power struggle has weaponry – emotional weaponry, psychological weaponry, weaponized resources. Anything can ultimately become a weapon, so we need to understand that power is a battlefield.

Coming from a background of emotional trauma and disempowerment as I do, peace does not mean speaking softly and being gentle. It means respect, that I respect you enough to speak truth. Peace means not abusing power. Peace means not losing sight of the goal, keeping eyes on the prize. It means risk, and it means the long haul. It means there is “we” and not only I. Peace means I see you, and I will not leave you behind. Peace means I will not just say pretty words, but I will walk my talk and be accountable. All these things mean I can feel as though you are trustworthy, not necessarily perfect, and a viable comrade.

Where are we now? We may be in the in-between space, between status quo and this new thing we are building. That’s a very scary place to be, because it feels like we’re falling with nothing to hold on to, no reference points. It’s dark. Things are rushing by very quickly, and we aren’t sure if we should hit the brakes or floor it. We don’t even know this road, and we aren’t the only ones travelling. It’s dark, and foggy, and the smell of a storm is in the air. We have to be willing to risk everything if we’re going to get through this.

The only way to get through this is to go through it, whatever “it” is. Hold on. Breathe. If we are breathing, we aren’t dead so keep moving. We don’t have to set a land speed record, just one breath that follows the next. And the next, and the next. We go together, or not at all. It’s an uphill journey, so if you’re standing still you’re falling backward. It’s not a race, and there is more than enough space for everyone so nobody has to be left behind. As the song says, I go to prepare a place for you. Do likewise, because that’s why we’re here.

Some of us believe that silence is equivalent to peace. That’s a fallacy. True silence is elemental; it is unto itself. Sound is made and inserted as a variance to silence. Silence is the flat line of a continuum, and sound adds variance to the medium. Sound brings peaks and valleys, highs and lows, diversity of a sort. It would seem to me that true silence can only be achieved in physical death. Molecules vibrate of their own accord, and with the vibration comes sound. Life is noisy. Life has sound, and that’s the nature of it.

The planet makes a sound, even in the quiet darkness of outer space. It is a vibrational and rotational solid mass that complies with the known laws of physics. Spinning objects emit a sound, a hum, a whir, sometimes a whistle or squeal if the rotation is fast enough. The planet has a heart beat, as magma shifts beneath the crust and tectonic plates push and shove each other. Organic beings have heart beats as well, and so we understand that silencing the heart is equivalent to physical death. Once again, silence is not equivalent to peace.

Our world is noisy. The hum and clatter of machines, motors, vehicles, voices, music all vie for our attention every second of every day. For many of us, that is maddening and we look for relief, for some place that is quiet. For me, quieting the sounds of modern living is not enough. There is noise in my head, memories that demand attention, plans that require energy. Conversations yet to be spoken, conflicts yet to be resolved. The past looms constantly, begging for revision with a healthy dose of imaginative editing. That’s noisy, sometimes rhythmic, sometimes melodic, but it’s a lot of sound. When it’s too quiet, I’m anxious, apprehensive, unsure of whether I’m still here.

Anger is very noisy, often unpleasantly so. It’s been a constant for me, a drone in the background that is often reassuring despite the discomfort it evokes. It’s often unacceptable levels of discomfort for others, which I find curious. Their rejection of people who are comfortable venting anger seems to be more a measure of their desire to control the environment than some moral accountability. I reject their rejection, and resent the urging to stay quiet, internalize my feelings, hide. I refuse to remain in the shadow of my shadow; I am not afraid of myself any longer.

I had an interesting interaction with a friend recently that brought up a lot of my discomfort with the discomfort of others concerning how i handle my emotions. She invited me to lunch, and I believed it was for a purely social encounter. Unfortunately, her primary motivation for the meal was to perform what amounted to a job interview in response to my “application” for a position on the Fellowship’s Board of Trustees. Her questions were standard corporate interview questions, asking me to describe why I wanted the position and what I would bring to it. That was disappointing, but I know this woman very well, and she is locked into a very unyielding and rigid view of relationship.

The only thing about this “interview” that made me angry was her question about how I might handle disagreement, or conflict. She took advantage of our personal relationship and became judgmental, saying, “In the past, when people disagree with you, you get mad.” I responded with some platitudes about aging and changing the amount of energy I have available for conflict, and so on and so forth and so on and growth and warm fuzzy self-help cooing sounds. That seemed to satisfy her, or not. I don’t really care. But later it angered me that she would be judgmental and take advantage of subjective knowledge of past dealings with me.

I didn’t bother to bring up all the times she’s behaved badly, and abused what she beleives to be her power. I didn’t bring up examples of how her wife complained about her controlling things to an extreme. I didn’t bring up how she shuts things down while claiming an advanced knowledge of process and the “right” way to do things because she is, of course, smarter than all the rest of us. I didn’t go there, and I won’t. But this is someone who has claimed in many ways to have love for me.

So, what is love? It’s noisy, it’s messy, it’s scary. It can make you insanely happy or bring on a grief so dark you cannot see outside of it. It doesn’t exist as process in your head. It doesn’t sit quietly and wait to be recognized for a chance to speak. It is being unafraid to look into Pandora’s Box, which actually wasn’t a box but an urn. Pandora was essentially Eve in Greek mythology, and was created to punish Prometheus for stealing fire from Mount Olympus and distributing it to mortals. Pandora intentionally set loose the contents of her urn, out of curiosity and because that was her purpose, I imagine. The urn contained all the evils and ills of mortals, but it wasn’t that simple. And when everything had been unleashed, Hope remained, tucked away under the lid.

Hope. The thing with feathers that perches in the soul. A sweet thing, a poignant thing, a soft thing that allows one to cling to the promise of life when things are darkest. But there is some reframing of that image that appeals to me. This has graced my Facebook feed more than once in the past couple of days, and seems a far more realistic image of hope:

People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rise for another go.

That’s more what speaks to me of hope. I’ve never seen the soft versions of things, but more the MMA fighter with a bloody brow, eye half-shut from swelling, cut cheek but motioning the opponent to come on, bring it, take your best shot. Until the final bell sounds, bring what you’ve got because I still have the hope of the ages left in me, the hope of all those who are in me and with me. The hope that love is not a lie, that love can not be counted out. The hope that I was not wrong about who I am.

Was any of this ever mine? Was my life ever actually my own?

Peace, peace he is not dead nor does he sleep – he has awakened from the dream of life. That was Percy Blythe Shelley from a million years ago, long before I was born, long before I died. Is life a dream? I’m not sure about that. If it’s a dream, it’s not always a lucid dream and I seem to be a mere character within it. Looking at my insides like a spectator, waiting for someone else’s plan to proceed.

I have just taken a vacation, a vacation from my own life. The scenery was changed, there was no schedule or plan, obligation seemed to be very far away. My living space was a mess, looking more like a crack house than a domicile. A needy and undisciplined dog roamed the open spaces, claiming long forgotten scraps of inorganic refuse as her own. There was no need to be sensible, respectable, or responsible. Paradise by the television light, my binkie would never abandon me and life was good.

But it did not last. The glaring reality of the world continued to knock, bills to be paid, people to be placated, time to keep. I was far more comfortable in the Salvador Dali world, with clocks that melted and swans that resembled elephants in their own reflection. It has been said that reality is for people who cannot handle drugs, but I handled mine with aplomb. Believing I was a pterodactyl for a weekend in college after some exceptional blotter acid remains one of my finest hours.

Alice is not in Wonderland, but there is a disenchanted queen who wants her head. The White Rabbit has not been seen for weeks and has made off with Alice’s wallet. She is insecure about her finances, and there is a scarcity of mushrooms. The problem with Wonderland is there is a dearth of solutions. It does not appear to be a permanent state of affairs, and it’s not the fall but the sudden stop that is a problem when you have to come back to Earth.

Back to life, back to reality, back to the here and now. That’s a song, by a group “Soul II Soul”. Reality is inevitable, whether you want it or not, whether you accept it or not. Drink copious amounts, take really good drugs, whatever is your fancy but reality will always intrude The idyllic high is always temporary, and nothing has changed outside of its short-lived enclave. Better living by chemistry is not all that it is cracked up to be these days, and it’s expensive. Reality is nature’s revenge for escapism, hedonism, and narcissism. A microscopic virus replicates the message that it’s not all about us, over and over again. So be afraid, be very afraid.

What if this is all there is? What if we don’t get this right? It would seem that not getting it right is the only reason to believe there’s an afterlife, another chance, a do-over. I suspect we’ve had many do-overs, and maybe there’s no limit on those. It would seem to get rather tiresome, however, to keep repeating the same exercise again and again, with no perceivable improvement. But, when you’re learning to play a musical instrument, the only way to achieve proficiency and eventually mastery is to practice the same exercises again and again and again. Many abandon the lessons early on, but a few maintain a commitment to mastery. Perhaps that is metaphorically true for human lives, only a few of us are committed to mastery, only a few of us continue the discipline of practice, of a beginner’s mind, of continuous improvement. The rest of us…not so much.

As I age, I am more and more convinced that every single error in judgment, every single negative outcome, every single mistake, every single misery is necessary to build mastery. These were not all errors of my youth, or errors before pscyho-therapy or sobriety, but still errors of inexperience and immaturity. Immaturity is a necessary stage, and it is not a function of chronological age, especially given that time is a human construct. I have always been mature about survival, but extraordinarily juvenile about living.

My mother always said that I often lived in a fantasy world, and that’s probably true. It was a way to escape the harsh and unforgiving nature of her world, where one needed to toughen up and have a thick skin, and do the necessary things. Nobody had time for fantasy or wonder, or joy. Life was an experience of endurance, of staying one step ahead of the inevitable disaster that lurked around every turn. Go outside and have fun but remember where you are and what you have to do. Don’t ever forget that survical, and not happiness, is not the measure of success.

So now here I am, the prodigal daughter. I desperately sought joy, but it has been elusive. I am not sure I have the infrastructure for joy. I am not sure I know how to have actual joy, or wild abandon. That is not reality, and I’m always at the ready for reality because it is unforgiving and enjoys attacking when you are not paying attention. Enjoyment usually means that I am not paying attention, and the most at risk for grave loss.

There are some losses one can never be prepared for, like death of a loved one. Losses with no advance warning, losses for which you have no frame of reference. Losses so grave they cause you to recalibrate your relationship to the rest of the world. There is no joy for quite a while after those have befallen you, as though you have no space not tainted with sorrow and grief. Life is a corset several sizes too small, squeezing the breath from your lungs until every inhalation is a sigh, every exhalation a sob. There is no space for joy because every cell in your body is desperately searching for something to hold onto in the emotional tsunami that has become your life.

When the waves receded for me this last time, there was debris everywhere. Some things that I might have wanted to keep were ruined, other things were beyond their usefulness and ready to be discarded. There was very little to be retained, reclaimed, restored. I got plenty of trash bags and squared my shoulders to haul them out of my space. Clearing away so much of the old has left room for the new, but there is still work to be done in creating a new space for my Self. Some of the old things are bits and pieces of a life I no longer claim, so it is good they are gone. I have no further use for those things. Creating the new life is more daunting.

So here we are. I’m doing some necessary things, but I am not sure I am independently creative. I am plagued with the destructive thoughts of being too old, too damaged, not talented enough, not worthy enough. My crayons are broken and many colors are missing, and I am looking for a template that doesn’t exist. I’ve never considered myself much of an artist, so I am in a dither about how to draw the life I want to live. I suppose it’s a day at a time, an hour at a time, a step at a time. I’m not quitting, even on the days when I really want to hang this up and be gone. I’m not quitting, because it would be such disrespect to my people who have lived through so much. They didn’t get everything right, but nobody does. I’m just going to have to keep going even when I don’t know why, or for what. I came here for some reason, and maybe it’s just my time to get a little closer to getting it right…whatever right might be.

They said I had no rhythm, and I couldn’t dance. So I don’t. It’s probably true that I will never be a drummer or dance like Charo or Rita Moreno, but I can, and do, play the djembe. I have danced. In my estimation, I have never handled my body well, perhaps because I never understood that it’s mine. Or maybe I just don’t have rhythm and can’t dance.

I don’t know where the line is between what I was told I couldn’t do, and what I truly do not have the skill to do. I don’t believe I’m a natural athlete, either, but every once in a while I could make a great catch, kick a ball, or score a basket. When that happened, I enjoyed using my body, enjoyed the sweat, was momentarily gratified by the immediate success. Or was it the accolades of others? Was it the atta girl and good job and adulation? It’s very much like working toward any goal on a team. You do what you’re told to do, follow the play book, and if you make the best out of your training and use your innate skills properly, you will succees, your team will succeed, and you will be rewarded in some fashion.

It seems that I have always been competitive, but feel that I lack the skill to win. That’s always been the problem. When I played soccer in college, it was mostly an excuse to chase girls. I wanted to win, but I mostly wanted the acceptance and approval of my team mates. When the opposition came at me, I folded like a house of cards. Playing amongst friends I could hold my own, but if you weren’t on my side I had nothing but wind. And it was not at my back.

It flusters me to know that I perform best when I feel someone has my back, that i have allies. Successful people can perform at high levels whether they are favored members of the group or not. Some perform better knowing they have no backing. That’s not how I’m wired, though, and I don’t believe it works to my advantage by any means. What the fucking fuck is that all about?

When I do whatever it is that I want to do, it’s rarely about using my skills to achieve a goal. It’s usually about acquiring something, like having my opinion heard and acted upon, or having my thoughts affirmed and validated, or purchasing something. It’s about having something or someone external give me what I want, usually in recompense for what I’ve paid. I suppose the question becomes whether I can ever get what I want of m own volition, independent of the solidarity of others, the approval or others, the price exacted by others.

I feel as though I have some part of my gut missing. And it’s definitely not any part of my lower GI system not working well, but its dysfunction lets me know it’s whole and complete. That is a blessing and a curse, I might add…but I digress.

The trouble may be in and around the solar plexus, in the 2nd and 3rd chakras, where emotions and self-will live. My emotions often seem to bleed over – literally and figuratively – into my center of self-will – often cancelling or mitigating my ability to say this is what i want to do, and I’m doing it. I feel as though I have a strong sense of desire, but effecting it seems to rely far too much on other people and external forces. I still don’t quite know how to navigate that.

Perhaps that is not a navigable medium. Perhaps it is more of an immediacy, where desire is its own vessel. Perhaps desire and self-will are synonymous, and both are weakened in my psyche. If that’s the case, I wonder if there are ways to strengthen those energetic components of my Self. When certain muscles in my body feel relatively weak, there are exercises that can strengthen them. Are there any resistance exercises that can strengthen the will, get the relevant chakra to re-activate?

It causes great sadness in me to contemplate whether I ever had the proper degree of self-will, with an activated 3rd chakra, or if it was squelched and shut down for protection. I do not feel that my heart center was weakened, but my solar plexus and throat chakras were definitely affected. I am trying hard to get my throat chakra open to a maximal degree. I’m somewhat successful with that, and still feel as though I’m at that awkward stage where I can speak but what comes out is often disconnected and tentative. I take that as a growing pain, but really wish it was over.

Is this all nonsense? Often it feels that way. Talking about unseen energy center up my spine and whether they are activated seems a bit nutty. I suppose this is recovery on another level, though, where faith in the unseen and unproven is essential to reclaiming a place in the world. That place, however, also requires faith to claim because it’s not one that can be dictated by the intellect. I may want to be a published author but I have no idea how that might look – self-published? One-shot deal with a small publisher like Hay House? Memoir? Personal essays? Those details have yet to be made clear, so…honesty, open-mindedness, willingness once again are the keys to unlock the doors.

To do any of that, however, I’m going to have to take a risk. Big risk. Jump off the cliff with no tether, jump out of the airplane with no parachute, jump off the side of the boat with no diving gear. Have faith. Trust. That’s what “they” say. What I say is that fear is real, and powerful, and has often paralyzed me. Maybe this dental surgery will unfreeze me, or maybe it will be a disaster that will put me to bed for the duration. Maybe it will be successful but I will still procrastinate about trying to be published for another 20 years. Maybe the state of maybe is far too comfortable for me.

For whatever reason there may be, I am feeling as though it’s now or never. Gotta stand up, stand up for my Self, stand up because I can stand (in the proverbial sense, not always the literal sense). Standing up is often the same as speaking out, which is the same as taking action. There are wrong things in my world – what can I do to change that? I am not at peace, in the collective or in my Self. How can I change that? In the past, I have thrived on constancy but I am beginning to see that as the enemy of progress. Life is an uphill climb and gravity is a real thing; if I’m standing in the same place I’m probably moving backward. Involuntarily, and often imperceptibly, I might add. Backward motion, like forward motion, has a cumulative effect though, so if neither is checked you find yourself a great distance from where you started after a time. I can’t say that all forward motion is good, but backward motion seems to be uniformly non-productive.

My spirit tellls me we’re all trying to get back home. We’re all in a diaspora of sorts, cut off from the light. Perhaps we should acknowledge the darkness, accept it as reality, and keep our eyes on the prize. We are all prodigals but the question remains – what have we learned? Have we been redeemed sufficiently to return home? That is the great question, the overarching mystery. Mysteries are places of maybe, and that’s uncomfortable. I have no power in the place of maybe, so I really don’t want to be there. But here I am. Maybe I’ll get used to it, maybe not. It is what it is.

The women’s NCAA basketball championship has been decided, in fairly dramatic fashion, with the University of South Carolina Lady Gamecocks crowned the victors. They are national champions, with an incredible record of 38 wins and no losses. Coach Dawn Staley, a product of the North Philadelphia housing projects, is no slouch in her own right before her tenure as coach of this phenomenal team – she’s an award winner as a player, an Olympic gold medalist, and a 4-time Naismith award winner as a coach. Her demeanor is one that suggests humility and benevolence, and she is unafraid to credit her faith in God for her success.

Dawn Staley is a champion, in our parlance, having success sand mastery at her craft. She is doing what she loves, and she is very good at it It is her occupation and her vocation, and she is handsomely rewarded with salary, esteem, well wishes, and loyalty. This is as it should be, I believe, and even the those who have fallen to her team’s superior play do not begrudge her of those honors. In the eyes of most, she has earned the accolades and has come by them honestly.

What of the rest of us, who are unexceptional, those who fall solidly amongst the crowd that occupies the mean of the bell curve. Not on the fringes, not on the margins, but directly at the midpoint. Some of us claimed our places there by no lesser effort than a champion like Dawn Staley, but perhaps did not have the innate stellar talent to progress to the margin. Perhaps this is the way of the world, the universal law of averages, odds, and expectations but maybe…just maybe…more champions would emerge if not for the expectation they were not exemplary, not stellar, silly for attempting to stand out.

Some of us are told that we are simply lucky to be under the bell curve, and we should be grateful for that. Trying to escape that prophecy is often considered insanity, a waste of time, not productive, and the dreams of children. Grow up, get to work, you’re not supposed to like it, just bring home a paycheck and take your place in the grocery store checkout line. Conform to the expectations and you’ll be fine. Accept the fact that you’re not Einstein or Marie Curie or Leontyne Price and face the reality of your bell curve existence.

For many of us that is a viable reality, and many of us do not have larger dreams. But what of the people who do have dreams, the ones who try something different? They often find themselves on the streets, or in institutions, with the hope literally beaten out of them. People often marvel upon conversing with homeless people, or incarcerated people, and finding them to be intelligent and philosophical. What happened, they wonder. How did your intelligence and sensitivity lead you to less than self-sufficient. How did you wind up being less than expected?

How, indeed, does that happen? There are so many ways people can be exceptions to expectations. Some of us do not conform to expected styles of learning, and we are categorized as underachievers who lack discipline when in fact we have learning disabilities, or ADHD, or mental health issues. When there is no systemic aid forthcoming, many of us self-medicate with alcohol and street drugs, desperately trying to feel “normal”. Others get some medical intervention, but it is often inadequate or inappropriate for the misunderstood and misdiagnosed patient as a child or young adult. We are still medicating hyperactive children into chemical dependence with things that render them zombies because they appear to be uncontrollable in traditional learning institutions. When their grades are poor, they are written off and moved to “special” classes, where it is hoped they’ll just stay out of view and cause no trouble. The stigma of that is horrifying, and can follow a child for life.

It does not serve anyone to be on the fringe of anything, and so most of us do whatever we can to fit as comfortably as possible into the mainstream. It doesn’t matter if you are miserable, just do what is expected and you’ll be just fine. Again, for a lot of us, that works relatively well, but there are tolls for that passage into obscurity. And, as many of us learn as we age, the body pays the price. We have earlier and earlier onset dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, need to replace joints, cancer, diabetes, circulatory and respiratory problems, cancer, cardiac issues. We begin falling apart by trying so desperately to hold everything together according to the expected plan. The problem is the expected plan is often not our plan, and the only winner is injustice, the system, capitalism, and on and on and on.

I believe my mother considered me a champion, but also a prodigal. She could squeeze a penny until it bled and cried for mercy. She was born in 1935, and experienced the uncertainty of the Depression, but also a change in fortune in the family. She never forgot that uncertainty, or the stigma of poverty, and she spent the rest of her life in dire resistance to both. It bothered her that I freely spent what little I had on what I wanted at any given time. It disturbed her even more that I was generous, and thought nothing of buying things for people that I felt they would enjoy regardless of the cost. I was most definitely the prodigal daughter, and we had much conflict about that over the years.

So, the prodigal daughter is now on her own. My frugal mother has been dead for many years, but left me a small nest egg to sustain me. That gift has made things somewhat easier for me, but now that I have no income, it’s not going to be all that I need. I am overwhelmingly grateful that I am in such a position, however, but I cannot forget my prodigal nature Perhaps if I had followed her example, I would be in much better shape financially, but I will be able to live independently for the foreseeable future. Prodigal is my nature, however, and I can make some attempts to conserve, but I fear that I shall go to my death bed with some of it.

The pressing question, however, is how does this prodigal daughter return home to demonstrate growth and redemption? The home has been sold, the parent is no longer on this planet. Where is home at this point? Where do I belong? How do I live into my own promise without being disloyal to my legacy? I have far more questions than answers, but it occurs to me that I demonstrate growth and redemption where I stand, and that home is within me. I belong to myself, I suppose, wherever I land. My legacy is signed, sealed, and delivered wherever that is as long as I am true to myself. Those are my thoughts at the moment, and I feel some miniscule solace in having them. Perhaps that is enough.