Here be dragons.
Back when I played regularly in the SCA, my friends and I had a little thing we would do as a joke: we would raise our hands in front of us as if holding a sheet of paper, and say "Here's a map of where we're not going." (i.e., "Don't go there, dude, I don't want to hear anymore about it.") Of course, after awhile we didn't even have to say anything, just raise our hands. Message sent, and everyone would laugh. I've been thinking about that recently, although in a different context.
The past two years of my life have been characterized by change, and my keyword throughout has been "transformation". It's as if my life is undergoing a revolution, bloodless but not always peaceful. (Sometimes, when I'm feeling stuck I even think of a line from the anime Rurouni Kenshin: "You must complete the revolution.") I look back over those months since the initial coup d'état that upset the status quo my life had become, and I can see the trail littered with what has been lost and discarded. Some of what lies there I mourn, and some of it was trash in the first place, but of a certainty, my life was slowly being emptied out.
However, I just realized that for much of that time, there has been something slowly growing, as well, there among the wreckage. I didn't notice it at first -- who notices a seedling in the midst of a revolution? -- but it's big enough and vibrant enough to be noticed now. It's my new life, and my new self, and my new world.
And I can't identify it at all.
I can pick out bits of it that I recognize. That's a stem, that's a leaf. But the whole? Unidentifiable, it doesn't match any picture in any field guide I have. Maybe it will turn out to be a giant beanstalk, and I'm destined to be the Jack in my own tale, to climb it and find a new world in the clouds. And it's frustrating, because I want to climb it now, but I know it's too young still to bear my weight. I can only nurture it with hope and perseverence and faith, and trust that I'll know when the time is right to start the climb, that one day I'll look down and realize I've been climbing for awhile already and the top is in view.
It's my invisible map, you see. I don't know where I'm going anymore, I am the adventurer in my own life, even more since the trip.
It's delicious.
I have this feeling, it's difficult to describe, but it's as if there's something wonderful just to the left of me, and I know it's mine, I know it will belong to me, but I don't want to jinx it. For now, I can only look at it sidelong, as is proper when looking at magical creatures. The direct gaze is fatal. I have to be on my honor, I have to stay focussed on the path in front of me. I have to become my true self, my best self. If I can do that, then maybe this lovely thing that I can only get a taste of right now, that shiny sweet image in my peripheral vision will become true and real. It might be the shape of my future life, but I have to build that life first.
Oh dear. I'm beginning to sound like an out-take from the movie "Field of Dreams". Build it, and it will come.
Regardless, whether I am nurturing a beanstalk, following an invisible map, or building a baseball diamond in a cornfield, it is a beautiful feeling, this waiting, this creation. I am on the verge of myself. What will I be doing then, who will be in my life then? Will I be satisfied, will I be restless, will I be striving, will I even know I've achieved my goals? When I've completed this revolution, will there be another one brewing?
It is all unknown, it is all that invisible map which I chart every day. It is frightening. It is exciting. It is an ache, and it is a comfort. It isn't even completely in my control.
It leaves me off-balance, and completely centered.
I have become my own song.
The past two years of my life have been characterized by change, and my keyword throughout has been "transformation". It's as if my life is undergoing a revolution, bloodless but not always peaceful. (Sometimes, when I'm feeling stuck I even think of a line from the anime Rurouni Kenshin: "You must complete the revolution.") I look back over those months since the initial coup d'état that upset the status quo my life had become, and I can see the trail littered with what has been lost and discarded. Some of what lies there I mourn, and some of it was trash in the first place, but of a certainty, my life was slowly being emptied out.
However, I just realized that for much of that time, there has been something slowly growing, as well, there among the wreckage. I didn't notice it at first -- who notices a seedling in the midst of a revolution? -- but it's big enough and vibrant enough to be noticed now. It's my new life, and my new self, and my new world.
And I can't identify it at all.
I can pick out bits of it that I recognize. That's a stem, that's a leaf. But the whole? Unidentifiable, it doesn't match any picture in any field guide I have. Maybe it will turn out to be a giant beanstalk, and I'm destined to be the Jack in my own tale, to climb it and find a new world in the clouds. And it's frustrating, because I want to climb it now, but I know it's too young still to bear my weight. I can only nurture it with hope and perseverence and faith, and trust that I'll know when the time is right to start the climb, that one day I'll look down and realize I've been climbing for awhile already and the top is in view.
It's my invisible map, you see. I don't know where I'm going anymore, I am the adventurer in my own life, even more since the trip.
It's delicious.
I have this feeling, it's difficult to describe, but it's as if there's something wonderful just to the left of me, and I know it's mine, I know it will belong to me, but I don't want to jinx it. For now, I can only look at it sidelong, as is proper when looking at magical creatures. The direct gaze is fatal. I have to be on my honor, I have to stay focussed on the path in front of me. I have to become my true self, my best self. If I can do that, then maybe this lovely thing that I can only get a taste of right now, that shiny sweet image in my peripheral vision will become true and real. It might be the shape of my future life, but I have to build that life first.
Oh dear. I'm beginning to sound like an out-take from the movie "Field of Dreams". Build it, and it will come.
Regardless, whether I am nurturing a beanstalk, following an invisible map, or building a baseball diamond in a cornfield, it is a beautiful feeling, this waiting, this creation. I am on the verge of myself. What will I be doing then, who will be in my life then? Will I be satisfied, will I be restless, will I be striving, will I even know I've achieved my goals? When I've completed this revolution, will there be another one brewing?
It is all unknown, it is all that invisible map which I chart every day. It is frightening. It is exciting. It is an ache, and it is a comfort. It isn't even completely in my control.
It leaves me off-balance, and completely centered.
I have become my own song.