"Nothing falls apart, it just falls into place." ~Me, talking to myself on a Tuesday morning.
The day was blissfully youthful and this was my superlative testimony. This was also my attempt at shaking off an unwanted pressure emanating at my every sunrise. "Nothing falls apart!"... I psychologically broadcasted my declaration of independence from all stressful circumstances to the subconscious revolt launching my thoughts into a rapid, space-like orbit. I felt like an astronaut, and Houston...we have a problem. Many.
Now, time for coffee.
Speaking of space, I'm actually a Houston native, born and raised. So, don't mind my fake and aspiring English accent, or my involuntary "New Yorker" tough girl demeanor, or my guru wanna-be persona, 'cause beyond this rewritten and re-invented, hopefully-evolved, but confusing version of my 'self', there's me. Just me. And, though my redneck twang has pretty much vanished on it's own behalf, I'm still just a simple chick from the south, just as exhausted and frustrated as the next person. Though, I use the term "simple" very lightly, as I do believe "simplicity" to be a finer quality of life entailing a profound humanly intent and an impervious vigor for laughter and a good sense of humor. Though both stipulated and interlaced by elements of healing and forgiveness, something as simple as simplicity is quite onerous in it's lucid contradiction. And, it's an absolute paradoxical way of living and co-existing here on Earth. With such vigorous kinetics in our subjective stamina, despondency, and logistics, something as simple as being "simple" can actually be the mastermind of difficulty. So, when I refer to myself as being "simple", it's more like an affirmation or a mantra - a goal. Because, "the way the cookie crumbles" makes a huge mess. It really does, and life is one cookie crisis after the next. So, I've adverted to the more candor-driven adventure as being that of virtuosity and tranquility, i.e. sacredness. The chastity of mind and spirit and the brilliant artistry of patience and acceptance is what makes all the pain worthy of our suffered time. The creative savants, the heroic, the philosophers, the shepherds, the "lost souls"; all of Zion's everyday students have often suffered the dire dearth of love. Patience is our rebirth after pain has called us to our death, and a dynamism of reverie, solution, revelation and purpose is indeed impelled and conveyed when conceived. To be frustrated and exhausted, lost and confused, even angry and bitter implies not negativity, but a huge amount of positivity. I'm an advocator for a unanimous co-existence, and that includes our dualities within. The world inside of us determines the world outside of us. It takes a light to cast a shadow, and only by withstanding our very own defeat, our confusion and our over-extended frustration, will we ever know our capacity to triumph. Without the night...we would never see the stars. "Calm seas never made a good sailor." I read that on a billboard recently. I liked it.
What doesn't kill you...The list goes on and on.
So, I think our ability to clearly comprehend situations and circumstances madly depends on our frustration and confusion, and I've personally embraced all my holy tragedies. And, after abundant years of devoting myself to defying myself and a thousand heartaches and conscious defeats, I realize convolution and complexity is what's made me a better person, not love. Love is what makes me one with God. There's a difference. Though as a commemoration, I do give ample credit to an early-life pledge to graciousness and gratitude highly suggested by my bloodline of good 'ol country folk. I deem where you come from, it does say a lot about you, and 'who' you come from. And, gratitude and graciousness, or 'Grace', is the key to the lockets of love, for such invocation liberates the soul from all the rusted bolts and chains, and imprisoned we are not by the solitary confines of trauma. We are actually free.
So, I thank my family for offering me their insight regarding grace. This cultivated panorama, an intuitive and sensible inkling, decodes all of our languages. Grace is the answer to all of the questions our ambiguities indefinitely await. And, though I've given some merit to a hand full of Texans, it didn't take the Lone Star's state to enlighten me completely on this one. It took a much different state.
I moved away from the land of blue bonnets and Wranglers years ago. Humidity, oil vineyards, muddy waters, melodramas and chronic boredom derailed me of my homestead around the age of eleven. I was uprooted only to never look back, and it just took one gigantic spoon full of inconsistency to make the medicine go down. I was medicated by the 'unknown'. Instability became a theme regarding my dizzy upbringing, though a stanza for all my poetry 'twas. I found myself quickly. I found myself writing. And, that was my stability.
Around the age of twenty, I relocated to a mental state and life got a lot less "simple". Today, I live in a world on fire. Inflamed we are by love, but burned out we are by pain and suffering. And, most of the bridges I've built have been accosted by a flickering blaze. But, then the rain falls and everything changes. I'm baptized by a hurricane. And, as a lament from heaven eulogizes my soul, I notice a rainbow. An upward curve of colors paints the sky after every storm. I have hope after all. Although, my legion of questions and concerns are still undoubtedly absorbed by a sponge of mantras and prayers, borderline doubts and fears. I’ve been advised to "ring out" the answers when I'm ready. I've been told I have that power to do that, the power to look within to find my every solution. So, I'm ready. I've asked for the truth to compose the words I scribe and I've requested it be a language I am able to speak. That's all.
So, clearly I live in a spiritual state too...on a good day. I also live in my own apartment in Los Angeles. I live everywhere. I breath air on a multitude of turfs amidst a profusion of offbeat worlds. This is a fact. I’m undeniably betwixt amongst responsive variables, evaluated illusions, and my Gordian mind set once conceived out of wed-lock. I divorced my anger issues and most of my old thought patters, not all of them. What doesn't serve me anymore...doesn’t serve me anymore. Not to sound redundant. I’m much too aberrant when consumed by the savage, also known as the beast. I have to let it go. I feel more at ease these days too, more freely sundered by the overwrought of negativity that consumes the world. I’m in a new relationship with myself. My spirit reigns on her God given thrown. I honor myself for all that I am and for all that I am not. I am just me, founded in all my states...moving closer and closer to "simple". I'll get there one day.
And that's the way my cookie crumbles...all over the place.
Hmmmm, some sophisticated writing for a simple country-girl! One of my favorite and most abiding paradoxes is simplicity vs. complexity. Years ago I discovered that simplicity is a myth not worth trying to realize, except in a radically paradoxical way. How so? What's confusing and complexly dis-integrated inside us creates much of our difficult and ultimately painful experiences. The process of undoing the amorphous complexities of our inner lives is complex, detailed, and rigorous. But what results is a radical simplicity, a clarity, allowing us to weave a beautiful web, much like that of a spider, of our lives...complex, yet simple in its buoyancy, strength, and flexibility. Of course, to have the time and energy to unwind our insides, and be with our deeper transitions, we need to make available our attention, which requires simplifying our outer world. So, simple outside, rich inside. Another beautiful paradox.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this writing, thank you. My fave line..."Patience is our rebirth after pain has called us to our death, and a dynamism of reverie, solution, revelation and purpose is indeed impelled and conveyed when conceived."
Though it's a bit open to poetic interpretation.
Peace, J*
Thank you Jack. Your comment is thought provoking.
ReplyDelete