for those who think my posts are already too long, i apologize for this... i would edit, but it would become meaningless. i would fragment, but the story might be lost that way. so i emplore, if you would know what it is i want to say, to read it in it's entirety. i, in return, will try to make the next one shorter... no guarantees... and really, it looks longer than it is... i love line breaks... what can i say? on a last apologetic note, this is nowhere near as good as my last post; that was one of those rare beautiful moments when everything just came out right, and i don't really expect it when it comes...
I come to the bridge to feel. i come to the bridge to think. but mostly, i come to the bridge to pray. when i can pray nowhere else, when my place in the world calls me a hypocrite in a voice i can't shut out, this is my shelter. it's here, in this place that is only ever itself, that has nothing to offer me but wind and solitude annd elevation and water, that i find one more thing offered... faith. here i can pray and believe my words, here i can open my heart without the restraint reserved for all the other places in the world that i have sullied and spoiled with what i choose to be most days. i'm alive nowhere like i live here.
Gathering rocks that look the most like my various sins, lugging them to the rails, i feel five again, almost too many stones for my tiny hands, trying not to drop any as i walk to my favorite spot, knowing the ritual must be preserved, the ceremony that melds reverence and innocence, the perfect balance of man and child and God.
Today's prayer is different from the others... because for once, i try not to make it about me. or rather, i try to make it about me in a way that will make my whole life less about me and more about others. "God, give me your love... show me how to love the way you did. teach me your forgiveness, your grace, your acceptance of the pain that cannot be changed and must only be endured well. as i let go of these stones, help me let go of all the things that hold me back, bitterness, pride, my slighted emotions, my infancy. help me to stop poking the bruises and relishing the pain, so that they will heal and my heart will have a chance to beat without hurting. forgive through me. love through me. live through me."
i'm writing while i'm here. a poem about the bridge in winter. it's good, i like it. this makes me smile, because i know how transient a gift my poetry can be. it's cold, but i don't mind, am happy in fact to sit on my pen to warm the ink for the next stanza, a challenge to write only the potent words, a race against time and weather. it's dark, but i don't mind, it challenges me to really pay attention to what i'm writing, and exercise in concentration and in trust, believing in my hands and their ability to convey wht needs to be remembered, whether or not i can see it.
But i'm already straying into poems best kept for another day.
because it is more accessible, each time i was finished writing, i would put my notebook in my jaciket pocket instead of the pocket on the side of my jeans for which the book is traditionally reserved.
nothing is without consequence.
throwing stones while sitting is awkward. it is more awkward still when there is a plank directly in front of you at the exact height at which you would like to release said stones. I stand. throw a few. but i'm still too close to the edge, there is nowhere for me to turn, to take a step, to get the proper velocity. some small and grossly romantic part of my nature is mildly repulsed by the paltry distance each stone manages before striking the river's surface. pathetic, really. these are supposed to be my sins... how badly do i really want to get them away from me?
sufficiently enraged, or at least playing the part (and also recognizing that it's cold up here and i will probably only be able to stay another few short minutes), i return to the walkway behind me and begin hurling the remains of my handful of stones over the railing and into the dark, hungry water. each throw becomes more charged with energy, more elaborate, more intense...
it sometimes takes something dramatic to wake us to the truth...
and so, the tenth rock. i rear back, turn, jump a little in my effort, trying to get everything on this one, it's the second last rock i have with which to do this right.
and i hear a strange fluttering sound.
it sounds like birds under the bridge rustling to reposition themselves against sleeplessness and cold.
it sounds like a paper bag caught in a tall oak, begging for release with the voice of the wind.
it sounds like my notebook.
i'm paralyzed by the spectacle. frozen by my unwitting assistance, colder than any wind. the pages dance like an afterimage in my eyes. my life is in that book.
i'm not sure how long i stood there, not breathing, not moving, that strange fluttering singing songs from my life into my ears, around my head, their rising melodies unfettered by the growing breeze, the invisible fingers lifting each note to me to make sure that i heard. that i understood.
but i didn't.
not yet.
everything was too raw.
i heard it hit the water, and then, freed from my paralysis at last, i knelt down at the edge of reason and watched, feeling the weight of my impotence pressing on my back as the book floated along with the current and finally disappeared under the bridge.
i could tell you the rest of the story, of how i scrambled across the dangerous and open railway tracks to the other side of the bridge, or how the wind almost knocked me over twice, of how i crawled like a baby the rest of the way, just to try to catch another glimpse of my loss. i could tell of how i drove along spadina, stopping at a couple of places alaong the river to run to the bank and scan the shorline, hoping against any possible hope that it might have washed up against the ice, running through the low trees and thorns, ignoring the still-growing cold, the fire in my face, my forehead, the loss of feeling in my toes as they blundered through the snowy banks.
but we all know this story already. the story of unaccepted loss. the story of how hard it is to let go sometimes, even if we know it might be for the good.
so insteaad, i will fast-forward to the river bank, to a fool standing, freezing and straining his eyes against the dark waves, knowing in his heart that even in daylight this would be futile. imagining every shadow, every rock, to be his potential treasure. and then wondering, in a disconnected way, what the point of this excursion was. knowing that the book was already most likely ruined beyond retrieval, that even if it reached the edge, he would not, in consideration of the strange warmth of the last few days, risk crawling across the thin cracking ice to where the water began only to retrieve something that he didn't even really want back.
and that's when it clicked.
i didn't want it back.
and that got me thinking. thinking about what the book meant. thinking about what kind of role it was playing in my life. thinking about idols.
a book full of things that i wouldn't want anyone else in the world to read, but that i am more than willing to pour into my own head on a regular basis. a record of the things i'm not sure i want in my head, and yet carry around with me and read. meditate on, even. occasionally even obsess over. how can that be healthy? to meditate on sins, on mistakes, on questions and doubts, on weaknensses and insecurities? for every healthy thing in those pages, there were probably 10 unhealthy ones. this may be a lot of things, but it is NOT loving the Lord my God with all my mind.
I'm getting a new notebook today. i'm going to fill it with as many good things as possible. the other things, i might still occasionally write, knowing they are safer there than in my head, but rather than savoring their fetid flavor as they decay and rot my mind, i will tear them out, destroy them if i can, at least put them somewhere else if i can't, somewhere safe, somewhere where they are unable to constantly bypass my defenses and fill my mind with thoughts contraty to the stuff with which i should be filling my mind, the stuff that matters, the things on which we're supposed to think, to dewll, to meditate. good things. maybe, just maybe, it will affect how i see things on a regular basis. can't hurt, anyway. after all, if we're supposed to think on things that are good, and pure, and right, and lovely, then i've been shirking my responsibilities. big time. i think, in our own ways, we all have.
so. good thinngs. a new direction. hope. i feel lighter. i feel like i can walk without the limp at the side of my left leg, the one i didn't even know was there. i feel like a hysteric slapped in the face, seeing the truth clearly for a few minutes. which doesn't mean i won't lapse back into the comfort of my prior gibbering. but i will not waste this opportunity, while it exists, to see reality, to gather it, to consume it, to remember it's face, and it's strength.
and with time, maybe its strength will be mine.
