Fear

Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them. ~ Marilyn Ferguson

Fear has been a strange, elusive, powerful creature in my life. It has driven me to do things I wish I hadn't, to throw up walls I regret building, to run from anything remotely threatening. Like almost every emotion, I believe fear has its place at times, like when we are in danger and need our minds and bodies to kick into a mode of protection and survival. But for me, fear has mainly been a hindering presence throughout my years, preventing me from experiencing life the ways I want to because of having been hurt or having caused pain to others, being afraid to let go of the past and feeling lost in the present. However, as someone recently said to me: Life is messy.

The more I try to prevent sorrow or anguish, the greater magnet to those things I seem to be. So, I've recently began to assess some of my greatest fears. I plan to face as many of them as I am able to and can withstand, even if it takes me longer than I'd like. Because I think Marilyn Ferguson is onto something ... and while the process may be hard to stomach and difficult to breathe through at times, I know in the end, I will be better for it. Because, what is the point of living life if we're not actually living?

Yes, I experience life deeply in a very intimate and personal way every day, whether by inhaling the air and reveling in its sweet, earthy scent as I leave my house every morning or gazing at the stars every night when I let my dog out before bed. But it's about more than that. That isn't the reason I was kept awake as a child at night, feeling this overwhelmingly potent sense of greatness out there, waiting for me to embrace it. Life, I realize now, is about creating a story, your story. It's about making connections with other people and weaving those strands together to braid your existence on this earth and to nourish your growth. If I hide from everything, if I run from the things that scare me, if I let the scars of my past impede my future, then when it comes to the day I leave this earth ... I'll have nothing to look back on.

~ C ~

Eyes

"Those true eyes/Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise/The sweet soul shining through them” ~ Owen Meredith.

When I was a little girl, my grandma, my aunts and pretty much most of my family would tell me I was "the apple of my dad's eye."

Let me back this up by describing my dad in a general sense ... he's introverted, wise, an "old soul," intelligent, peaceful, grounded, frugal, reserved (except to those he's closest to), quietly loving, eccentric, patient and calm. So when I was younger, the above words never quite penetrated. I wasn't sure what my family meant when they uttered such things. I didn't know how to "look."

As I grew older, I paid closer attention, which spurred an observation I began to make with every other significant person that has entered my life. I can't remember where I was, but it was a family function. My dad was talking with someone and I walked into the room and happened to spot him right away. I watched him look up at me and saw his entire face transform. His light green irises softened and his smile reached the corners of his eyes in a way only the most genuine of emotion can elicit. It was as though my mere presence, to him, lit up the entire room. I had to look away.

It was then I realized how significant someone's eyes were. Perhaps we could all do better with knowing how to "look" at the people important to us. Over the years, I've gotten skilled at masking things, whether out of protection or not wanting to draw attention to something I was battling inside me. I got through most of high school in this way -- during the later years in particular -- slithering in the shadows, hiding in the corners of the room. Some of this, I'm sure, ties to my anxiety. The main focus in my mind is not to solicit unwanted attention, so naturally, instincts forced me to cover things up. But, as few people have discovered over the years, there is a part of me I have no control over. I'm much like my father in that way.

Everything is betrayed by my eyes. Everything.

And I still look away.

~ C ~

Guilty Pleasures

We all have them, to some degree. For me, it's vampire books/shows/movies, fantasy fiction computer games and once in awhile, a cheesy romance novel. I could give reasons behind my attraction to each of these things, but for this morning's entry, I'll focus on my computer game fetish. Awhile back, my dad, who I am very close to, got me into this computer fantasy fiction game called "The Longest Journey." It's one of those games that has a long story plot revolving around a female character who "finds herself" through this journey she takes in a dream world she never knew existed. You have to use your mind a lot, uncover clues, find items to get you to the next chapter, but I fell in love with the storyline as well as the music. There has been a sequel, which I played in college (my boyfriend at that time always knew when the computer was on and that game was on, I was "in the zone"), but they have yet to complete the third game. Well, this morning, a song from the sequel, "Dream Fall," came on my iPod while in shuffle mode. It's called "Hold On," by Magnet.

Last night, anxiety (something I've struggled with for most of my teenage and adult life) took hold of my mind. At one point, I just laid down on my living room floor and looked at my ceiling, letting my eyes focus on the ridges, dips and patterns of the plastered tapestry above me. It gave me some sense of solace, but much of the night, I felt lost. So this morning, when this song came on, I let it speak to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KMfN0sKcws


These days I don’t see you walk to proud
These days I don’t hear you talk so loud
When you thought you’d soaked up all of the blows
You realized you were not even close
And it feels like it’s tearing you up
Feels like it's wearing you down

You’ll get through this if you hang on
Cause the truth is you’re not alone
You’ll get through this if you hang on
The truth is you’re not alone
You’re not on your own

I see your face on every corner of every street
You spend your days just waiting for your next defeat
But I can only tell you what I know
And all I know is that I just don’t know
And it feels like it’s tearing me up
Feels like it’s wearing me down

I’ll get through this if I hold on
Cause the truth is I’m not alone
I’ll get through this if I hang on
The truth is I’m not alone
I’m not on my own
And you are not alone
It’s just hard sometimes to carry on
No I’m not on my own 
And you are not alone
It’s just hard sometimes, so hard sometimes
But we got to hold on 

~C~

Inspiration

In keeping with my Frost theme today: Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves. ~ Robert Frost

I've recently been scaling back on my use of technology ... I have not rid myself of it altogether, though I can't imagine the kind of peace I may feel if I had, even for a week. But I am working toward a tranquility akin to that. I don't think we realize just how much information we process on a daily basis through Facebook, Twitter, our cell phones, the internet, television. Those are all useful tools, yes, but I've found that in moderating them, a weight I didn't even realize was there has been lifted. 

Tonight I found myself remembering a childhood story: The Princess and the Pea -  http://childhoodreading.com/?p=5

As I'm sure most girls did as children, I used to pretend I was a princess, but in my fairy tale world, I didn't know it. Being a self-proclaimed Tom Boy, I would rather run around outside, talk to the trees, fight battles and dig into the soil than pretend to be a dainty princess. But my plot would often revolve around my identity being hidden from me my entire life by a wicked stepfather or captor. I only knew I was something special by the secret language I spoke to the trees and the air. However, like any girl, princess or not, there was always a constant plea in my heart for a prince to come rescue me. 

In "The Princess and the Pea," she was unfailing in her belief of her identity ... and feeling the pea beneath 20 mattresses was proof to her prince. I, too, have always felt my own version of a "pea" beneath me, making me restless every day and aching for the courage to embrace my identity and find my own version of "happily ever after." I envy the fairytale princess that. And perhaps all of that childhood whimsy is a product of my society or maybe I was and will always be, on some level, a romantic. But I've come to realize, the "prince" isn't necessarily a person ... the prince is me.  


~ C ~

A Monday Soundtrack

This song by Thomas Newman, which people usually recognize as the song from "American Beauty" (a favorite movie of mine), came on Pandora today and I was suddenly immersed in it. Each key stroke seemed to tug on a different part of my heart... as though my emotions had become a string of notes, a melody, a symphony for only my ears to hear. It became the theme song of my day.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm5ZtxIFOzg

"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and ... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever ... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in." ~ American Beauty

The Road Not Taken

Yesterday, I found myself in a very vulnerable place. Anyone who knows me, knows that Sundays are my least favorite day of the week. Perhaps it's simply because it's the day before the work week restarts and I feel the weekend perishing with each passing minute. Perhaps it's because I'm coming down from two days of activity, relaxation or socializing. Whatever the case may be, the melancholy assuredly will set in each and every Sunday and I'll enter a place of inward thought. For me, this can lead to moments of enlightenment or self realization, but oftentimes, it leads to me pondering the things I wish I could change, reminiscing about the past and feeling the effects of a foggy future.

So, there I sat on my couch, staring out the window directly across the room from me, watching the sun go down and hearing people outside laughing, talking and having fun. Tears slowly made their trek down my cheeks as I thought of things that could have been, things that may still be and wishing I knew what path to walk down. My best friend, Katie, sent me a Robert Frost poem last night ... and like an old friend coming back to remind me of sentiments I'd long forgotten, his words put me just a bit more at ease:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ C ~

Beginnings and Endings

Someone who has become very important in my life recently asked me what the point was in me writing every day when I don't share it with people. Yes, writing has always served as a conduit to the deepest regions of my mind, heart and soul ... to the innermost elements I strive to protect, but yearn to nourish. And while putting ink to paper has never failed to sate these pieces of me in some ways, I've recently realized that being able to share what is created in the process may quench much more than that daily aching thirst. I'm not sure where this new chapter will take me, nor do I know what theme will unravel here, but I hope those who find me will want to follow along.

So ... to this person, who posed that question.

Thank you.

~C~