1 One
1
We start inside that quiet, that is where we come from. But then we find ourselves among a vasteness that is all time and space. In a dream, in a place of spirits and angels, we are made to recieve a destiny of our own choosing. We enter into a dark place, filled with knowledge, the knowledge is recorded and set upon shelves, and we are asked to find what it is that interests us.
"By three folios you shall find a fate and destiny" came a voiceless revelation. A knowing before knowing.
I sought a shelf with a book, bound in gold, glowing brightly among the others. It seemed to have the glow of the spirit around it. I felt drawn to the book by the comfort and peace which surrounded me. When I had taken the book from the shelf, some more books appeared and some fell away. The next book that caught my attention was thick, it had a certain style which was similar to those around it, and they all bore a time. This book I grabbed and out fell another. I had chosen my three.
"You have chosen in part your fate and destiny by what you desired and what you saw, by your impression of what you've seen here. You are to be placed in a time, to live out your duty as men do. The knowledge you chose were three books of men, one by a great saint named Thomas Aquinas, it was his greatest work. Another by a man named Fyodor Dostoevsky, who lived in troubling times. His Brother's will mark your life. The last book must have chosen you, it was from Fyodors time. It is by a man who concerned himself with the human mind. His name was Sigmunld Freud."
2
They had me me hold each book in my hands, turn over the pages, so that it read into me. Then they said goodbye.
"I finished reading that book last night," my solemn gaze was looking outward toward the sun, but I was still contained, in dreamlike thought. It was not lost on my audience, a girl, my daughter. She changed the subject in cheer for the sake of the mood between us.
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out pens which were given to her by a friend at school. She smiled and spoke excitedly about his giving her this precious gift. My child is an artist.
I sat back and put my thoughts away. I determined it was only right. She continued.
"And look," she grabbed a notepad from in front of me,"one writes thick, and one writes thin." Her false gaeity was a sign to me she also did not approve my brooding over books as I had been. I finished a novel I had been carrying around for years, an early 20th century novel, A Passage to India. Only a week before I was seriously considering becoming a Buddhist.
Her disapproval was not entirely authentic. Which was partly to blame for my inattention. She had learned it from my mother, who was also concerned that I was too old to be rediscovering myself, and for the fifth or tenth time. My habit was to try new versions of myself, become disenchanted, erase, and start anew.
What was different about this time was that it was as though all the trials before now were going to intersect here, and perhaps I would find something I'd missed. My career at this point, was nonexistent, as was my financial security. Perhaps I was going to become a writer, or a teacher, or a philosopher. Perhaps all of these things, they too seem to intersect.
In the midst of my delving, the child retired to her room and left me struggling. By the time you are a teenager, you know exactly what you are doing.
I never gave credit to any of my children for being people. I hadn't done that since I was very young, looked at others as the individuals they are. Now, approaching middle age, I was suddenly at odds with the world, a culmination of years separated from it by my youthful foibles, my friends' wise learning from my mistakes, and the solitary life I created for myself with these people who were to become something when all I ever expected of them was what I had to make out of them. But each was his or her own. The only one which seemed to bear any likeness to my maternal imprint was my son, who might have come entirely from my gene pool. No doing of mine.
So here I sat, really reaching. At once reawakening childish ambitions, on another level, psycologically, trying to reconnect with those philosophical enagements I remembered were valuable to the last social group I had belonged to. I was picking up where I'd left off. They still have these interests, but as I have said, my mother doesn't approve. How she made her maternal imprint deeper and more troubling to me than I could with my own children, in all my rage and fury, is beyond me. She wasnt easy to live with, either.
Really, for all its melancholy appearances, reinvention isnt all that terrible. Perhaps the ugliest and most threatening thing is what my mother sees. She thinks I am unsettled. But to myself I am cultered, educated, and sometimes, our insides need reassessment for purposes unique to people whose lives, perhaps, never really fully blossomed.
My life was a habitual grouping of ideals, from one traumatic necessity to another. The mastering of domestic duties, the ineffectual parenting of my children, the clutching, grasping and release, my souls deep contrition and the impossible pardoning of its inconstancy. The balancing act of my belief in my own purity and my watching my mother, her absolute escapism in every avenue outside perverse vice, and how her succeeding was succeeding me. How loathsome it was to be a part of a family. My purity wasn't that great. I was little loved, underappreciated.
They had me me hold each book in my hands, turn over the pages, so that it read into me. Then they said goodbye.
"I finished reading that book last night," my solemn gaze was looking outward toward the sun, but I was still contained, in dreamlike thought. It was not lost on my audience, a girl, my daughter. She changed the subject in cheer for the sake of the mood between us.
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out pens which were given to her by a friend at school. She smiled and spoke excitedly about his giving her this precious gift. My child is an artist.
I sat back and put my thoughts away. I determined it was only right. She continued.
"And look," she grabbed a notepad from in front of me,"one writes thick, and one writes thin." Her false gaeity was a sign to me she also did not approve my brooding over books as I had been. I finished a novel I had been carrying around for years, an early 20th century novel, A Passage to India. Only a week before I was seriously considering becoming a Buddhist.
Her disapproval was not entirely authentic. Which was partly to blame for my inattention. She had learned it from my mother, who was also concerned that I was too old to be rediscovering myself, and for the fifth or tenth time. My habit was to try new versions of myself, become disenchanted, erase, and start anew.
What was different about this time was that it was as though all the trials before now were going to intersect here, and perhaps I would find something I'd missed. My career at this point, was nonexistent, as was my financial security. Perhaps I was going to become a writer, or a teacher, or a philosopher. Perhaps all of these things, they too seem to intersect.
In the midst of my delving, the child retired to her room and left me struggling. By the time you are a teenager, you know exactly what you are doing.
I never gave credit to any of my children for being people. I hadn't done that since I was very young, looked at others as the individuals they are. Now, approaching middle age, I was suddenly at odds with the world, a culmination of years separated from it by my youthful foibles, my friends' wise learning from my mistakes, and the solitary life I created for myself with these people who were to become something when all I ever expected of them was what I had to make out of them. But each was his or her own. The only one which seemed to bear any likeness to my maternal imprint was my son, who might have come entirely from my gene pool. No doing of mine.
So here I sat, really reaching. At once reawakening childish ambitions, on another level, psycologically, trying to reconnect with those philosophical enagements I remembered were valuable to the last social group I had belonged to. I was picking up where I'd left off. They still have these interests, but as I have said, my mother doesn't approve. How she made her maternal imprint deeper and more troubling to me than I could with my own children, in all my rage and fury, is beyond me. She wasnt easy to live with, either.
Really, for all its melancholy appearances, reinvention isnt all that terrible. Perhaps the ugliest and most threatening thing is what my mother sees. She thinks I am unsettled. But to myself I am cultered, educated, and sometimes, our insides need reassessment for purposes unique to people whose lives, perhaps, never really fully blossomed.
My life was a habitual grouping of ideals, from one traumatic necessity to another. The mastering of domestic duties, the ineffectual parenting of my children, the clutching, grasping and release, my souls deep contrition and the impossible pardoning of its inconstancy. The balancing act of my belief in my own purity and my watching my mother, her absolute escapism in every avenue outside perverse vice, and how her succeeding was succeeding me. How loathsome it was to be a part of a family. My purity wasn't that great. I was little loved, underappreciated.
And by necessity, I must change. I knew too many wonderful things, I read too many things, in absence. I discovered the beauty without and denied myself beauty within. I drained myself and others. I contemplated perfection and insisted upon it. I was moody and temperamental. I expected reason from the unreasonable. Commitment from vain and shallow youth. I had the ability to see but demanded it. I demanded that others see like me.
How could they? How could you ever? Remember more than a passage, be written, as if upon the same page after page... those things are almost eternal, when lost in time. Souls you know, are written by the hand of God. Why was i tortured by existence? Why did it need to mean anything, while others are floating by, like flies or birds, without care, absolutely obvious to the scene?
My challenge was to learn to love, to really love. To be punished and brutalized, finally, with acceptance. To be brutally, honestly open to love, without the need to direct or produce. To let others have their rambling, distinctive monologues. To introduce myself to divers diverse personalities. Some within the same person. Allowing moods, feelings. Believing, trusting, openness, forgiveness. All of the things I could do without in expecting perfection, and then, my wildest surprise, finding that it all leads perfectly down that lovely avenue after all.
And why had I finally discovered faith? That's what it was. Faith. Purest faith. Was it confidence? Was it the bottom I'd hit? Was it that loathsome family was really all that I had? No nothing like that. It was was faith. It was the assurance that if I must believe, I had to.
And why had I finally discovered faith? That's what it was. Faith. Purest faith. Was it confidence? Was it the bottom I'd hit? Was it that loathsome family was really all that I had? No nothing like that. It was was faith. It was the assurance that if I must believe, I had to.
3
My life begins each day anew, as yours does. But I hate mornings. There's a certain kind of person who feels driven to succeed and that person has never been me. But seeing as I had to make money to survive, I resisted the temptation to have anything but tireless days.
I was finally aware of my position. Like a marksman, I drew my target into my sight in advance, days sometimes weeks, but never far enough to take down the difficulties for good. But I agreed that it was my duty, so on I fought.
I struck at being able to bare a heavy workload, to keep the kids afloat. To be sure there was comfort and pleasurable things, at least enough they weren't missing out on life. I realized I was at odds with my mother, and I knew it was time to deal with it like a woman and not her child.
I wouldn't groan anymore. I wouldn't be pleading with life. There was no more of that out there anyway. Instead, I would find every balancing point within my strength, to realize everything and with surrender. It was a miserable rebirth, but it was slowly becoming. I surrendered my rights to action. I lost sight of what held me back. I felt renewal each day that dawned. Within a short time, I believed I could do without the crutch of my restless pursuits, and be focussed without alarm. It was everything I meant to do, but took so long to learn.
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