I took a to a phone Friday night with a mallet, not really thinking through the consequences. Later, I thought of this poem, as I stood in the aftermath of fine glass dust and the smell of a lithium battery a rolling fog around me.
“From Out the Cave” by Joyce Sutphen, Straight Out of View
When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.
And now, I'm stumbling out of my cave to become a labradoodle of leisure. I've not ever had a proper gap year before, even when I tried, I only lasted about six weeks, including after Fanglet's demise, but I'm going to give it a try. Apparently, it will involve a lot of walking and eating gorgeous food, . I may have just discovered crispy carrot fries. I didn't even know that could be a thing.
My first celebratory move on this new adventure was a second date Tuesday evening. An evening of good food: cod in squid ink and duck breast with a 'dirty mash' that involved brisket. Later, a sweet kiss good night. It was a novel delight to realise I could still experience butterflies, that I can still blush and allow myself to lean into another person. I don't know that it will go anywhere, but after the last few years in my watchtower, it's quite a thing that I am even allowing myself to entertain the possibility of possibility.
And I suppose that's what the next part of the journey is about: the possibility of possibility. It's a bit of a moveable feast of emotions, to be honest. Relieved, excited, bereft, heartbroken. The possibilities abounds, both blessing and warning shot.
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