The day has thus far been undone. It's been sweet, alive, and far from shallow. It's been insightful. Bubbles are billowing within me and brimming at my fingertips which propels me to write, as nothing else but a distraction from my flushed, windblown reflection I see when I dance with joy in the mirror. Tis a titillating Saturday. Shall I tell you more?
Until recently, I've felt like a puzzle with missing pieces. I've been all laid out on the table, looking the best I can with what I've got, which was clearly not enough. As a result, I sensed some puzzled looks from friends as they've thought, "Amy is not her self." (I know this because I can read minds, you know.) But I think I've found some pieces to my self lately, and they've fallen into place. I feel whole. And tho I'm in tact, I do not feel "complete," or finished, like there's nothing more to add; I feel like the jagged space between the puzzle pieces are being hugged... and that is a wonderful feeling. I don't want to identify with the image on the puzzle that you see when you step back, but rather, I am the space within the image - the little cracks and curves and dips; I am a puzzle without corners or edges, not a picture, and it is particularly possible I'll be taken apart and be put together again on an other day, on a Sunday, or attached to other pieces that seemed disjoint before. Who knows? But today is Saturday, and today I'm together looking pretty swell.
I went sailing today. Nothing is cooler than putting up an away message that states "AmyMeredith is sailing on the San Francisco Bay." I rock. I took the helm and the wind was tossing my already wrangled hair towards Oakland. Why does the wind make me feel so brave and beautiful? Not that I regret it, it could toss my hair with reckless abandon and I will walk away smiling. This must be why birds dance at the shore.
Bob, my fatherly department supervisor, spoiled me silly out there. Back at the yacht club, he dotted me with his children's homemade brownies and banana bread, and he bought me a beer. In shooting the shit about work and budgets and our complete disdain for political bureaucracies, he turned to me and suggested I take some time off. "Spend as much time as you can with your friends," he explained, "jobs, homes, things... they come and go. Good friends though, those are the things that get you through. You need to focus on them." His wife recently passed. He continued, " And write as much as you can, polish that. You have an amazing skill." I smiled inwardly. "It's like music, don't you think? When you put the pen in your hand, a rhythm starts to move through you, and you're just a tool for it to come out... do you feel that way at all?" "I feel like a vessel." "YES! It's going to get you somewhere." It was wisdom, flooding my consciousness. Bob's a nice friend.
It's still overcast outside as I look westward from my apartment window. It's breezy and a little colder than San Franciscans hope for the day before June. Some people call this adversity. SF is the Midwest on the bay and all the footloose hippies wear a layer of thick skin, repeating the mantra, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But today I don't mind the gray chill sifting in. It's not killing me, and it's not what pushes my endurance to new heights at all.
Today is a fantastic Saturday, where the wind is a disguise for the birds dancing on the shore who whisper words of wisdom that stretch out to me, all the way to a second floor apartment on 16th avenue, and it fills the space between my pieces like a knowing hug. The breeze is a solidifying agent. The space I have within me is getting so filled up that I could simply burst. And when I do, it'll be fun to put the puzzle back together.
No comments:
Post a Comment