Heart pumps fast, and my body burns hot. Stopping after walking fifty minutes non-stop, looking for gaps to pass safely, when coming across fellow hikers. I don’t like walking behind anyone. A fault to a degree, and I accept myself as I am. Passing as quickly as I can. Another data point supporting the same null hypothesis. My life doesn’t fit within the normal distribution curve, because well, I don’t go with the flow. Carving my own path, away from the crowd. I am who I am. I cannot be what I am not.
Standing atop Lion’s head, I can see as far as my eyes can carry me. The city still sleeps, covered in thick blanket of clouds. A mouse scurries quickly through the thicket of bush.
Something stirs deep inside of me. It’s time to rise. I extend my arms above my head, taking up space as I stretch. I sit up. Feet firmly planted on the ground; I venture outside. I have rested long enough; hibernation comes to an end.
How did I find my way out of there?
Gabor Mate led me to Martha Beck, and she led me to TS Eliot’s poem,”Wait Without Hope” from his “Four Quarters 2- East Coker”
“I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. “
So the darkness became my light, and the stillness the dancing of my soul. I welcomed discomfort of unfamiliar places and strangers. Creating distance from the all-consuming office, curving my appetite. Finding myself free of thought, no longer recounting stories of colleagues to friends and family.
This love letter goes out to those moving to the different beats and rhythm of unfamiliar days, creating new beginnings as we go. Becoming more of ourselves, letting go of what we are not.
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