How I love early mornings. Around 6 AM is ideal. This sacred state can usually last up until somewhere close to 8 AM.
I love the birdsong behind our house. We have a scruffy patch of untouched forest where committees of birds consort every morning to plot and plant their day. Or so it seems.
Lately, a murder of crows has taken up residence in the remaining live oaks behind us. I don’t actually know how large a group of crows has to be to be a “murder” but there is a bunch.
Straight out of birdworld central casting, they caw incessantly. Sometimes in unison and at other times, a single crow with a particularly large and booming caw rings out over the others.
The crows occasionally fly away in unison on whatever mission they have decided is necessary. I am struck by how little I know about birds as I listen to them and watch their aeronautic displays. It piques my curiosity.
I love early morning when it is quiet and the only voice I have to listen to is the voice in my own head. Uninterrupted by abrasive external distractions, I can enjoy my own sense of peace and calm.
I hear garbage trucks way off in the distance. A small aircraft buzzes by overhead. There is traffic way, way off in the distance. Soon cars will start up around me as neighbors head off to their jobs. I am no longer part of that morning migration and I am so grateful that is so.
Yesterday, I wrote what was for me a fairly disturbing post about an art installation replicating our collective Sisyphean task of chasing money to sustain our lives with increasingly diminishing returns until we die. I used to be acutely aware that there was an inherently unbalanced tradeoff between time and money in my life and that of others.
When I had enough free time to pursue personal interests, I rarely had enough money to freely do so. When I was employed and earning money, the time I needed to pursue personal interests was eliminated. A devil’s bargain.
I am at a stage where I am resetting my goals. I am no longer convinced I will write the Great North American novel or bank countless millions with which to address the world’s ills. In truth, I never really had those goals but, at least when I was younger, they seemed attainable. Of course, almost everything seems possible when you are young.
I have come to one simple conclusion for my future direction. My life, my rules. I fervently pray (and hopefully believe) I will never have to work at a boring and unfulfilling job again. I grieve for the people that do. I grieve that I had to for so long.
I will no longer “dress to impress” anonymous others whom I hope may look kindly upon me and bestow some favor or another – financial or emotional.
I will no longer be silent or cagey in the face of outrageous circumstances. Strategic maybe, but not cagey. Life has taught me the truth of that you can attract more flies with honey than vinegar … if it is flies that you are out to attract, of course. And for the life of me, I can’t imagine why one would.
This is a time of transition in my life unlike so many other transitions that preceded it. Life used to feel like having a bolt of fabric from which you could endlessly pick patterns and play with design and create costumes ad infinitum. Now I know the bolt of cloth I was handed is not infinite. Going forward, I must pick and choose the patterns and designs much more carefully and wisely.
Even these thoughts about my future are just forming. So much that used to drive my ambition and thinking has ebbed away. I am not as angry or tortured as I once was. I am wiser. I have made immutable choices in career, children and partner which have created a clearly boundaried paddock within which I will live out the rest of my life. Best make it the best it can be for me and my loved ones.
Dangers abound on the road ahead [like they always did] but so does adventure. And learning. And friendship. Blessed friendship. There are so many people without whom I would not be here today.
It is the harvest time in my life. To reflect on where I’ve been more deeply than where I’m going. To appreciate what went right and forgive myself and others for what went wrong. And for the most part, most of it no longer matters.
In a hundred years, it will matter to no one, except in one way. The external dragons and internal demons I’ve slayed will be a lesser threat to my children and theirs and the children of my great grandchildren ad inifinitum. I hope.
Knowing this in my bones has, if for no other reason, made all of the struggle worthwhile.
Expressive Compulsive 