Do you ever lose your voice—metaphorically, that is?
It's not the being silent that I mind; sometimes I need that; sometimes it helps me catch my breath.
What gets to me is the oscillation, the way the words form, rising up to a crest like a whitecap, but then rather than crashing into sea foam they just wither, because another set of words has arisen, another set of thoughts that defy them, and contort them, and maybe even erase them—as in a dream, when one thing morphs illogically into something else. The oscillation between understanding and still inquiring—the back and forth—the resultant contortion. My mind swings from one place to another and I can't think straight. I can't write straight. I can't string a row of words together without taking them right back.
There are ways of being that I believe in. There are ways of being that I know will leave me hurt. That some of them are one in the same is just as illogical as the dream sequence, but this is real life, not imagination, and I take each step as I want to and know I should not feel disappointment when the path I was walking evaporates.
1 comment:
a lot resonates with me in this post. i really like the image of the words forming (foaming?) and then withering as another set of words drifts in. withering is sort of death by being trumped, being ignored, and that is somehow far sadder than being shattered on the rocks. at least being shattered on the rocks means the words, for a time, had purchase, even if it wasn't right.
at the end of the post you say
"but this is real life, not imagination, and I take each step as I want to and know I should not feel disappointment when the path I was walking evaporates."
first, love the use of 'evaporation,' keep those water images coming. more importantly for me, this notion that you take each step you want.. that is, you know what you want an you do it. hard no? don't your wants conflict? don't you find that you reflect on things you've done and you're not like "huh"? i can usually make a reason for some questionable things i do, but i'm never quite sure if that's the 'why' or if i'm just not sure of the 'why' at all.
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