The Unknown Quantity.

I can’t sleep.  Again, I’m very, very, very anxious.  I violated the 30 minute rule twice before I came to the keyboard, to try and spill what’s bothering me without spilling what’s bothering me.  I just laid in bed for an hour, listening to music.   Finally, one of my old songs came back, and punched me in the grill, and I just couldn’t lay there still trying to make my mind stop anymore.  What song it was is really immaterial.  Do any of you do that?  Associate songs with things from your life, and all of a sudden, you’re an emotional mess, even though you’re alone with the music in a room far removed from the situation?  If up until now you didn’t realize how intensely emotional I am, pat yourself on the back–now you know. 

That’s the danger in ignoring your emotions.  95% of what comes through the door, you take in stride, reason it out, and it goes away.  The other 5% kicks you right in the head, and continues to do so until you get it out.  Those of you who’ve known me for a long time know what happens to me when I’m getting kicked around by one of the 5% things, and it’s never good.  What’s bothersome about this particular instance to me is how naturally the whole thing transpired.  (It’s bothersome because it’s not bothersome, if that makes any sense at all.)  There wasn’t any contrived efforts by me to retap this area of my life, or to remember it, all of a sudden, it was just there, staring me in the face.  And I ran from it.  I’m still hiding.  And I may have already been found, I just don’t know it yet. 

There’s a reason I love the darkness.  It’s cold, and it’s lonely, but it’s constant.  And once you get comfortable with it, it’s not frightening anymore.  It’s almost comforting.  It’s like being hidden under waves of photon based chocolate mousse.  The darkness cascades around you, and once you get used to the chill, and the way that the darkness flows, you realize that you’re not of the darkness, but that you’re in it, in a way you can’t measure or describe.  Yet there always comes that beautiful and perfect moment when the sun comes up. You’re comfortable in the darkness, you’ve just gotten comfy in it, and then the light starts creeping over the horizon.  Soon, the monochrome fades to grainy color, and then the explosion happens and the world is crisp, it’s full, it’s beautiful.  Do the trees and the animals ever fear the light, because they’re comfortable in the darkness?  Would they rather stay in the dark rather than having a brief 10 hour love affair with the light, only to have it run off again?  Does the earth ever feel used that the light never seems to spend time with it continuously?

I’m no fan of winter, especially this time of year.  (You all should be glad that I’m going to be busy answering intellectual questions for the next month, because otherwise, I’d be going off about Valentines Day.)  But do you think the earth fears the spring?  All the pain of getting started again, waking from a horrible slumber, the last thing on its collective mind the last tragic days of autumn, before the warmth left the touch of the sunlight on its surface?  Do the trees fear budding out again because they know the autumn will come?  Does the frantic twitterpation of the birds come from a terrible anxiety that they’re running out of time before the next winter?  The frost has to melt off, and go the way of all moisture.  But does the ground feel the pain as the frost breaks?  Does the horribleness of the deep freeze stall how long it takes the earth to bear fruit–like the earth has to convince itself to start again?

I have the feeling most of what I’ve just said will make it’s way into a poem that will not make its way on here.  Them who have ears, let them hear.  I’m not going to bother trying to explain this, except to say this.  When you live in the shadow by choice, you always fear the morning will come before you’re ready for it.  When the light starts to break over the horizon, it’s both an awesome and terrible thing.  Consider the light to have broken.  The light has come.  The warmth has come.  But what does that mean?

Right now, I am an unknown quantity, described in general statements.  How do I stay that way?  Could I even if I wanted to?  Is it possible to want to remain hidden and yet simultaneously want to be found?  Am I making any sense?

*shakes head*  It’s been 30 minutes.  Time to give sleep another try.  Blessings, friends.