sponge

What I have felt like for a couple of months, and now I am trying to wring myself out. I have been privileged to go to some amazing places, eat incredible food, meet wonderful people, learn remarkable things, and take a break from the norm since the end of May.

This is probably my first real summer vacation ever, when I think about it. Every year since I started college, I was working on one thing or another, teaching, moving house, preparing for Fall and stressing about not getting enough artwork done. Every August was the same dread feeling: I haven't done enough painting, I haven't re-worked my curriculum, I haven't chilled out properly and want to continue my idle lifestyle. In a word, guilt. Guilt for not being self-motivated, guilt that I really hated the drudgery of school life--especially when that school was so cushy and easy to handle compared to the war zones my friends were working in. Also guilt for not keeping in touch with people I felt I should keep in touch with. I felt guilty for who I am, an introvert who needs 5 days of complete silence to recuperate from the whirlwind of daily life.

This summer has been different, a fact for which I am truly grateful. The biggest difference is that huge insoluble lump of guilt has been removed. I can't say it was a great experience, the surgical slicing-away I had to go through this winter and spring, and the parts that had lived with the lump longest still remember their companion. Just today I felt that gnaw in my mind, "I'm down, things are f'd." But I can't put my finger on why that feeling was there except that is my default mode, so I can brush that aside as just a residual feeling with no basis in fact. And I remembered to breathe. For someone who almost literally held her breath for years, this is a huge step.

I guess it all looks very cryptic here, but that is how it feels to go through such a transformation.
It's not something easily explained, nor should it be. It's deeply personal and one might wonder why I am writing about it anyway. I don't know, really. It feels good to share healing, especially after I have shared so much anguish here. And I'm not just talking about smelly yarn or impossible knots, but I think they echo my inner life as well. Because I untangled that knot, instead of cutting it up into 3-inch linguine and setting it on fire. I dealt with the crap, instead of closing the door and letting it fester like I had my whole life. It was exhausting, expensive, and deeply painful, but so is any life-altering surgery.

I still struggle with a feeling of hopelessness about the world, the inevitability of history, the impossible march of decay in cities full of trapped people. I don't believe peace is possible in a large-scale way, but I have found peace for myself. I have a deep hatred for corporations and corrupt governments with no concern but the making and keeping of money. I don't believe in the commonness of decency, as it is so obviously absent from public discourse, military actions, religious pronouncements. I believe that Christ has overcome the world, as he said in John 16, but my belief is more a matter of faith than of a tangible reality. The world, and our country in particular, are so out of balance. We are absurdly wealthy and self-absorbed, so illiterate of history and so incapable of civil debate, so divided. Our moral authority is spent, really and truly. And the people reporting this to us rub their hands with glee, because nothing sells better than chaos. Yet I am here and mostly content. It is a major miracle. Peace that passes understanding, guarding my heart and mind...