I've been riding my bike around town. On the one hand, I love that I can do this, ride through all my old stomping grounds. On the other, the nostalgia I feel, the longing for the way things used to be, makes the ride a bit of an emotional roller coaster.
And surreal. It is such a strange mix of old and new, of some things being exactly like they were, exactly where they were, 45 years ago, and other things being juxtaposed onto the landscape, replacing or displacing. It's very disorienting. As much time as I've spent here over the past 31 years, it's an aspect I can never quite get used to. It's weird to be standing someplace and know something's different and yet not be able to quite put my finger on it. Or to look at some new development and be completely unable to recall what the area used to look like. That makes me feel guilty, like I'm somehow betraying the memory of my hometown, or like I didn't care enough to memorize every square inch.
And the traffic. Holy smokes! It is, perhaps, the traffic that I am fighting the hardest to accept. The other night, about 9:30, I was driving home from Sissy's. Mind you, she lives out in the country, a good fifteen minutes from downtown. Once upon a time, maybe 5 cars would have passed me at that time of night. This night? 40-50. And this wasn't just as I got closer to the college and town. The stream of cars started passing me when I was still out near her house. I was flabbergasted.
I fight these changes so much. What happened to the Murvul I grew up in?
It's ridiculous, I know. Because let's be honest, if the Murvul I grew up in was so great, why did I leave? And this Murvul is so much more user friendly in terms of being LBGTQ and/or a person of color, in terms of open-mindedness. I mean, a transgender remembrance candlelight vigil in front of the courthouse? A lesbian minister of the UU Church with a wife and adopted child? Banning the display of the Confederate flag on campus?
Radical changes.
It is really hard to "go with the flow," to not put change into categories of good or bad. Change brings, well, changes. They go hand-in-hand. So, I am working on accepting the "good" along with the "bad," trying to simply appreciate the dynamic nature of life, and allow myself to be One with the Universe, the great, big, ever-changing Universe. Things feel better when I do.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Post-Move Pondering
I am slowly regaining my senses. The past four weeks have been a bit of a blur. I don't know which is more disconcerting: flying or driving across the country. Flying, of course, is surreal because you start off in one part of the country and then, fewer than 12 hours later, you're in an entirely different part. It's a slow version of the Transporter. Driving is surreal for kind of the opposite reason. Every day things are just a little bit different so that you don't really notice the fact that, in reality, you are moving very far away from where you started.
As I was writing this, I thought of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa." -Heisenberg, Uncertainty paper, 1927
What I can say for certain is this: I am completely uncertain as to why I am here. I am in a complete state of unknowing.
Regardless, here I am, and being here, I have the uncomfortable task of living in this unknowing and making peace with letting go of what I thought was going to happen, what I think needs to happen. Making peace with letting go of a pre-determined destination.
The following helps:
"A friend was traveling around Europe, training from city to city. Despite her plans, her interest drew her in different directions, and a path unfolded that she couldn't have foreseen. Each point of discovery led to the next, as if some logic out of view were guiding her. During this phase of her journey, though she often wasn't sure where she was, she never felt lost. It was when she needed to arrive at a certain station at a certain time that she felt she was off course, astray, and at the fringe of where she was supposed to be...All this led her to realize that the more narrow her intentions on any one day, the more she felt behind, late, and lost. In contrast, the wider her net of designs, the more often she felt a sense of discovery.
More often than not, our image of a destination is only a starting point that we cling to needlessly. When we can free up the sense of needing to arrive in a certain place, we lessen the weight of being lost." (The Book of Awakenings)
It's a very strange internal sensation, to feel as if I am beholden to someone, that I have to "make good" on what I said I was going to do. Truly, it is this feeling that causes me suffering, not the situation itself.
So I am working on uncurling my fingers and letting whatever this is become whatever it will be, right now, and not getting stuck on an idea. This is only a starting point. Where it leads, only time will tell.
As I was writing this, I thought of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa." -Heisenberg, Uncertainty paper, 1927
What I can say for certain is this: I am completely uncertain as to why I am here. I am in a complete state of unknowing.
Regardless, here I am, and being here, I have the uncomfortable task of living in this unknowing and making peace with letting go of what I thought was going to happen, what I think needs to happen. Making peace with letting go of a pre-determined destination.
The following helps:
"A friend was traveling around Europe, training from city to city. Despite her plans, her interest drew her in different directions, and a path unfolded that she couldn't have foreseen. Each point of discovery led to the next, as if some logic out of view were guiding her. During this phase of her journey, though she often wasn't sure where she was, she never felt lost. It was when she needed to arrive at a certain station at a certain time that she felt she was off course, astray, and at the fringe of where she was supposed to be...All this led her to realize that the more narrow her intentions on any one day, the more she felt behind, late, and lost. In contrast, the wider her net of designs, the more often she felt a sense of discovery.
More often than not, our image of a destination is only a starting point that we cling to needlessly. When we can free up the sense of needing to arrive in a certain place, we lessen the weight of being lost." (The Book of Awakenings)
It's a very strange internal sensation, to feel as if I am beholden to someone, that I have to "make good" on what I said I was going to do. Truly, it is this feeling that causes me suffering, not the situation itself.
So I am working on uncurling my fingers and letting whatever this is become whatever it will be, right now, and not getting stuck on an idea. This is only a starting point. Where it leads, only time will tell.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Homeward Bound
On the eve of moving back home, I find myself thinking about the past and wondering what the past really is. The experiences that I remember are no more real to me than a dream. I know I was there, I know these things happened, and yet my ability to feel connected to them is nonexistent. They are apparitions, flimsy, fleeting, and they often make no more sense in their retelling than a dream does.
What is the past? How do we know something "really happened" if it only exists in one's memory? If memories are real, then why aren't dreams?
It is when I remember the past that I fully grasp that what I think of as real, what I experience as real, is only the present moment. It strikes me that life is like a sparkler, fading almost as soon as it bursts onto the scene.
What is the past? How do we know something "really happened" if it only exists in one's memory? If memories are real, then why aren't dreams?
It is when I remember the past that I fully grasp that what I think of as real, what I experience as real, is only the present moment. It strikes me that life is like a sparkler, fading almost as soon as it bursts onto the scene.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)