Momentum

I feel an odd momentum building, and I'm not sure if it's just in me, or in the world in general. Maybe it's just the intoxicating effect of summer, and blessed reappearance of low-rise everything. Or, maybe something more serious is afoot. As Joni sang:

And I feel myself a cog
In something turning
And maybe it's the time of year
Yes, and maybe it's the time of man
And I don't know who I am
But life is for learning

That's pretty much how I feel these days. Must be a hormonal imbalance.

Still, it's hard to avoid the signs of impending...well, I'm not sure what. Let's just say that I feel like a seedpod - ready to burst and scatter. Okay, that didn't come out exactly as I'd intended. Take a moment to purge that absurd image from your imagination, and let me try again.

You see, my brain is burning - so much so that I'm having a hard time keeping track of the shimmering creative and personal threads I want to pursue. I know you're aware of it - I have a sneaking suspicion that I've been an intense little companion these last few weeks (although you do run with an nominally intense crowd, so maybe you're inured to it). I have used you as my primary outlet, and that's probably unfair. Hard cheese for you, my dear. You just happen to be the only person I care about that isn't living far away, having babies, or writing books. So don't start now, okay?

Maybe that's why I began this blog. To spare you the necessity of listening to me buzzing with endlessly enthusiasm about whatever particular bee might have found its way into my bonnet. I just dump my thoughts in here, comforted by the quaint conceit that you'll rush home to read the most recent installment. Then, when get together, you politely pretend that you've perused and appreciated my scribblings. It works for me if it works for you.

But don't kid yourself that this turbulent emotional typhoon is somehow an anomaly, and that it will simply exhaust itself in time. The truth is, the last few years have been the anomaly. In fact, if I'm to be completely honest, the anomaly has lasted for over a decade. But I think it is finally coming to an end. And if I'm not headed for a shattering nervous breakdown, the storm could be kind of fun…for me at least.

Once upon a time, I burned this brightly on a daily basis. I think it was pretty hard on the people close to me. I'm sure it cost me at least one potential wife; Liz married someone whose emotional arcs weren't quite so steep, or so precipitous. She found it exhausting to be dragged around by every new passion I'd hysterically adopted. Julie handled me much better - beautifully, really - but she did it my anchoring my heart to her solid sense of ease and contentment. When she died, I externalized everything within me and fled to South America: A perfect place for a soul that was determined to make manifest the most extreme elements of its imagination. There, I became Gato Gringo Loco, the crazy gringo cat - a perfect avatar for both my tempo and my time.

But, in eventually, I had to return - at least, I believed I did. Once back in Canada, my imagination calcified and my passion withered. Grief will do that. Once, I’d been filled with such hope, with the wild conviction that everything would work out, despite destiny's twists and turns. But the hard smack of tragedy knocked me from my optimistic perch. And it seemed pointless to climb back up. I suppose you could say I lost my faith: in love, in destiny, in romance, and in dreams.

Since then, I’ve settled for something so meagre - a less risky, less passionate, less emotionally ambitious life. Instead of trusting in grace and coincidence, I let myself be guided by the predictable, and the safely conventional. In retrospect, maybe that’s what I needed to hold myself together. Or maybe I was simply a coward. Maybe I was mistaken. Regardless, it’s the path I followed. And in the end, I barely recognized myself.

You know what they say about frogs? That if you put one in a pot of boiling water, it’ll jump out; but if you place it in tepid water, and slowly raise the temperature, the poor creature will sit there oblivious - until it boils to death. Well, I was the opposite case. A frog put in tepid water, the temperature slowly and inexorably reduced, until it found itself bound and immobile, its heart frozen and unresponsive.

Recently, however, I have begun to thaw. To stretch the metaphor to the breaking point, can a frozen frog be reheated and come back to life? Maybe the metaphor’s not so farfetched after all.

I’m not sure what's responsible for the thawing. Maybe the imminent death of a friend. Maybe the birth of my best friend’s child. Maybe you. Maybe all of those things.

But now, for the first time in a long time, I feel coincidence afoot and hope in my heart. After I wrote you (below, in Breath) about my struggle to remain honest and open and raw, I found this article in the Globe. And minutes later, I received an email from a friend overseas. He always signs his missives with three quotations, but I had never bothered to read them before. This time, I did:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy,now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
-Talmud

It is only by following your deepest instincts that you can lead a rich life and if you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct then your life will be safe, expedient and thin.
- Katherine Butler Hathaway

To be a warrior
Is to be genuine
In every moment of your life.
- Chogyam Trungpa

I’m not sure where the momentum is coming from, Beauty, nor how long it will last. But for now, at least, it's here. And so are you.