Saturday, September 11, 2010

Thoughts in the Raw

Feeling restless. Feeling bored. Can't sleep. Feeling alone. Too alone with my own thoughts.  


My thoughts.  

Inevitable. It feels inevitable. It's a force, a force that's pushing against me, something I can't hold back forever. How long can I push back? How long can I build the wall that holds it back? I feel it wearing me down. The overwhelming feeling of inevitability of it. I feel like the little Dutch boy with his fingers in the dike except I sometimes feel there are too many holes. I can't plug them all. I can't hold it all back.
  
Every night I ingest pills to help hold it back. Is it enough? I get tired of the routine, resent the routine, I resent the necessity.  Why is it necessary? It often feels like they change me but not the power, change me for the worse.

My thoughts.  

Alone, quiet, with nothing else, they are there. Sometimes I don't have the energy to push them away, can't do the exercises to move them aside. So I let them in, let them in to keep me company. They feel so normal now, not at all like before. There are no racing thoughts, no driven fear, no crazy energy whipping them through my mind like a tornado. They just come in. They come like the tide, like gentle waves lapping at the beach, each one imperceptibly higher than the last, coming little by little until at last you are covered in the rising tide and it's just there and you're floating and it's fine.  It's like the rising tide, the thoughts, are my friends now, enticing me. "Why bother?", they say, "it's inevitable at some point. You know you have to come over", all like a voice calling from the other side. So enticing.

And why should I make them go away, isn't it inevitable? And tonight they keep me company and help me pass the time.  Ideas pass through my mind, soothing, wonderful ideas. A far away valley, moon lit mountains, stars above, watch the beauty, go to sleep, return to nature. When can I put the ideas to work, I wonder.

So many souls, so many souls, too many souls, too many for this only vessel that gives us life. Would one soul, like a grain of sand from an hourglass, be missed? I can't imagine. One or two or three then life moves on for all the souls.  

Earlier a pleasant evening on a wharf. Beautiful dark clouds build in the east while in the west the setting sun finds space through still opens skies dabbling black and grey with brush strokes of salmon pink hues. Watch the free show with sun on back, relaxed, at peace. What's this? Why does the water look so inviting? It calls, it calls. The tide is high, you could ride out on the falling tide. It is like it's calling, enticing. The feeling is strong, so strong the enticement. What is it about the call of the water? The water, the calming, soothing water. Must leave, walk away. Start the car, drive away from the water, the inviting, calming, soothing water.  Leave for now.

Restless, restless, alone with my thoughts.


3 comments:

  1. I'm closer to your thoughts, these words draw me in. More like you, I think, than other spaces where you've written. It captures something more than just the words. Imagery.

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  2. Incredible power in your words, so filled with soul-moving imagery and metaphor, such gift of expression. What do any of our meager efforts mean, to ourselves, to others? Nothing perhaps but comfort in the experience that despite what our minds deceive us with, we are not alone, we are loved, we do love . . .

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  3. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, you two. As I said in my following post, I believe allowing those thoughts in and understanding them more fully to be a very useful exercise. "Writing in the raw" then is to share the usefulness.

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