How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life. – Steve Reich
I have spent the last year bewitched by a singular thought. It began as a wonder, planted unintentionally by multiple people who independently came to the same conclusion, well before the idea ever dawned on me. There was—is—an energy behind the idea. Though it was slow to root, once it took hold, its vines tangled itself in every corner. The details are ever changing based on how the scenario is or isn’t playing out in my reality, taking me on a wild ride of highs and lows. As my mother put it, “It’s like you are on a river, rafting through rapids, completely unaware if you are heading towards a cliff.”
Another person is involved, of course. Isn’t that always how it is with these sorts of things. And they have no idea what I’m experiencing, of course. Because isn’t that always how it is with these sorts of things? And now is not the time to say anything, of course, because when it comes to these sorts of things, timing is everything.
So I sit. And think. And try not to think. And push it away and watch it come roaring back again.
It manifests in my body, sinusitis combined with a heaviness that creeps through my limbs. I cut through it by watching my dog frolick on a dirt path behind my home, willing myself to hear the birds while I observe her canine joy and force myself to think, “If this is my last moment on Earth, my God, it is beautiful.”
Another thought: Don’t decide your failures in advance.
There are two forces at work here. First, a lesson on perception. Due to the nature of the situation, most of it is playing out in my own mind. Over the past month, new information has come in that has me questioning my interperetation of the last year. My mental and emotional assumption of What Is has taken a sharp turn, veering away from one of hope and possibility to one of frustration and stupidity.
And yet, objectively, the situation has not changed. It is identical to what it was six months ago. All that has shifted is the story I tell myself. Still, it is maddening that I can’t find the line between intuition, instinct, and fantasy. That is not often a line I struggle to walk.
Which leads me to the second lesson, a perennial lesson it seems I am constantly forced to learn: the art of waiting.
Back in Issue 22, I wrote: We have conditioned ourselves to think that when we are presented with a choice, our only options are to pick one or the other and to do it fast. But there is an ever-present third choice that often holds the most power — the choice to wait.
I am fighting a sinking feeling telling me that I was wrong, that what I thought this was, isn’t. I want to chastize myself for being so foolish, box up the embarrassment of ever mentioning it at all, and pretend it never happened by engaging in whatever or whoever pulls me in to break up the thought pattern. But even if this path turns out to be true, it is too early to decide my failure. Frankly, there is little evidence to support the Stupidity Theory. But there is some evidence, albeit not an overwleming amount, to support the Original Theory. The truth is likely somewhere in between. I am sure I have overcorrected on both ends.
So I must wait and find a way to tend to the roots without letting the vine suffocate its host, one thought at a time.
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