Saturday, June 5, 2010

My Going Out Shoes


I’m sitting in the comfy chair in our living room, my feet slung over the side, my back resting against the big puffy arm. I am watching Sam and his dad play Candyland and I am growing more and more anxious. I am becoming painfully aware of the pretty skirt I’m wearing, the barrettes in my hair, the going out shoes on my feet. Because I woke up this morning with the full, confident, joyful intention of going out alone. Unlike other days when I felt the need but let it marinate in guilt so that I was unable to present it as a fresh and true thing, this day I simply felt the joy of it, the anticipation. I might go out to lunch alone at that fancy restaurant I love. Or I might make it to the church yard sale before they close up for the day, or I might spend an hour in the Salvation Army looking at every piece of clothing hanging on the rack. Or I might sit in the library and read. It all felt delicious and wonderful, all the possibilities and the feeling of certainty that it would be OK, that it was perfectly right and fine for me to have this day.

And when I approached Sam from this place of confidence, with the expression of a true and authentic desire, we quickly came to an agreement. He began to cry, but I felt no guilt, no anger, no frustration, only the rightness of my request and the surety that he would feel this, too. I hugged him and held him close to me and it seemed he did feel my confidence, or I felt his lack of need, I am not exactly sure what passed between us, except that it contained nothing extraneous, no guilt or remorse and no real sorrow. And he said simply ‘I think I can do that’. And I knew that he could.

And then the clock passed by the appointed hour of noon, when Jim would arrive and I would depart. And it ticked and tocked and dragged the minutes along until one o’clock came and went and still no Jim. And I experience that familiar feeling of foolishness, that stupid hopefulness of getting ready for a much desired treat that I will not be allowed to have. I begin to feel sorry for myself, ashamed and stupid, until I realize I’ve fallen into the swamp and swim back up to the surface. I call the fire chief and find out Jim missed their meeting this morning, I gather Sam up and we head over to Jim’s small trailer, where there is no telephone to connect him to the outside world, and I reject the possibility that there will be anything too very wrong. I let go of my day out, the heaviness of disappointment dissipates, at least for now.

Jim has had one of his blinding, three day headaches and his face is scrunched tight in reaction to the daylight that slashes through the doorway when he opens it in response to the honking of our horn. He steps out into the day, unshaven, scruffy, and yet I see him begin to lighten as soon as Sam comes around the corner. Within an hour the headache has left him and we sit in the heat in his little yard and talk while Sam pours water on our feet to cool us down. It is a pleasant afternoon.

In the evening husband says tomorrow we will try again, but in the morning I do not awake with the same feeling of confidence and I do not even suggest a day out for myself. Inside I still long for it, attempt to hearken back to that feeling of joyfulness, but it has left me for the time being. And I wonder what it is I need from this, why it is that I seem incapable of creating this day out for myself. Sometimes I feel so trapped by this and yet I see that it is a trap all of my own making. I remember the simple truth of the exchange between Sam and me, and that if all our communication were this clean, we would both always have whatever we need.

But today I am cranky, all inspiration has left me. I am so often still just a pool of muddy water, and find myself thrashing about in the murkiness, wishing for something different, ashamed of my own wishes, stuck in the quagmire. Feeling my way toward clarity, feeling the full weight of what it means to be alive, to interact in present time with the people I love, is sometimes so extraordinarily painful that I actually wish for death.

And yet, inside that wish is the seedling growing into the tree of my life. For it is the continual death of the ego, the end of a series of lifelong emotional dances, the death of various aspects of my will. These deaths are painful in the extreme, and yet liberating. I do not surrender easily—that is I have given the outward appearance of surrender all of my life. But inside I dwelt in a fortress that was impenetrable, largely because I was not even aware of its existence. I lived behind walls of clear glass, looking out upon the world and yet afraid to touch it or have it touch me.

And there’s my kid, who shattered the glass long ago, who touches me, rolls around on me, kicks me, yells at me, kisses me, loves me and lives right here in my heart, right here where even I never dared live before. I now have wishes and desires and needs. Inside the fortress I felt them, but lived as if it were my lot to long for but never achieve them. I had the luxury to live this way, a martyr to deprivation, stuck there forever. I did no harm, stuck in that place—or what harm I did seemed of little importance.

But now it matters. For it is the weight of unfelt feelings, the pain of unmet needs that makes interaction with the outside world so painful, and this means that I as grow and become real, as I learn to live on the outside, I experience, identify, feel and act on those feelings. I go out alone unless I truly and clearly feel glad to stay home. Because the alternative is resentment, disappointment and despair, and out here it harms us all.

Outside the fortress I see that all I wish for is within my grasp if only I will allow the true feeling, if only I will make space for the joy. It is painful, this transition, but it is alive, it lives like a weed, growing, spreading, reaching ever upward. Reaching for light, reaching for life, reaching for the real experience of this day—reaching for my going out shoes.

2 comments:

  1. I love you fiercely Robin.....

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  2. I think this post describes precisely what so many of us on a RU path experience. With love, Jolene =)

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