I can't know everything about tomorrow, what it will present, nor how you or I will move within it. I have no psychic abilities. The future is as wide open as it ever was, though at times I press it into a Jell-O mold and watch it jiggle in mock salute. I want it to set like concrete that can be etched with promises...indelible and intractable.
But these are the fanciful wishes of a child. Promises go forth as our attempts to lasso the beast. Tame it we can. But anything wild is unpredictable at times. We live wild. We are not concrete. We so desperately want to believe we can foretell forever if we word it in prophecy. Promises are fenceless yards where we set the dog, then slap our heads in disbelief when it has run off. Promises are well intended but immature. We cannot move forward or back on their conveyor. Better a leap of faith...no promise of sure footing, no promise of arms catching, no certainty...a leap into the wide open of us, and it being enough to know that it felt like the right thing to do now. Right. Now.
I will never know tomorrow today, but it can know my feet...leaping.
(This is not about the promises of God. Strictly human. There are things I want to know for certain. I clash with the realization there are no human certainties. The choice then...will incertitude be chain, or wing?)
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one of my challenges these days is simply being. reacting. just be.
ReplyDeletei like bookending the back and forth imagery, jello to concrete and chain and wing.
my irishman friend while in town said the mind wants control over the body and so it is constantly getting us to think about the future and past because in only those places does it have power. this piece brings me back to that.
if we're living, i think everything we do is a leap of faith. if we're living. but then there are a lot of cotton people. (love that bukowski poem.)
ReplyDeletexo
erin
I love the way you think. (Beautiful writing too btw)
ReplyDeleteThere are no certainties. No human certainties. I think it is one of the biggest reason that most people never really live at all. They live safe. And for the incertitude becomes a chain. then there are those who step into the next moment with face to the sky and shoulders squared. They know not what comes, only that they wish to met it. For these people incertitude becomes wings.
I think I am a mix of both.
what about U?
I like this. Live in the moment, and take a leap into the future, every single day. I stopped attempting to see or guarantee the future, a while ago. I was happier after I did.
ReplyDeleteI knew you were speaking of human promises. Ah the broken hopes and promises we have given and bought.
ReplyDeleteI crave certainty. I know it is fruitless and illusary yet there is that inherent need in me that persists in clinging to this illusion of an unchanging world ... even though all around me is evidence to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteI think I shall have to practise this leaping bizzo and see where it gets me. Email on the weekend Annie when I have time to do it justice. xx Jos
Leap, Annie... leap. :)
ReplyDeleteYep,, today, I do...
ReplyDeleteEd - That is so interesting. I'm not sure I agree that the mind has control over the past...only in that it can choose what to remember and shade it in the exaggerated colors of negative or positive. I really connect to the mind thinking into the future because it is under the ILLUSION that control is possible. I too am trying to be so mindful in the moment. Being. Reacting. Reacting truthfully, instead of as I was taught or conditioned.
ReplyDeleteErin - I drove down Eight Mile Road last night and rolled down my windows to dislodge a mosquito. The air rushed in, heady with alfalfa. I let my hair grow wild just to inhale that scent a little longer, to know it in the moment, to recall it from the past, to memorize it for the future. I thought about fields of cotton...the quote. Powerful that one!
Tabitha - Absolutely! I do both. Sometimes I write like I really understand what the hell I'm saying LOL! It's simply a dress I am trying on...spinning in front of the attic mirror and taking a nip-tuck here and there, or disgarding it altogether! But yes yes yes! Uncertainty can become the heaviest of chains...paralyzing. I think I can honestly say I am living with my shoulders more squared. And I love what you said about not knowing what comes, but wishing to meet it...head on. Perhaps it's the boxer in us ;)
Anthony - A wise man once said..."I stopped attempting to see or guarantee the future, a while ago. I was happier after I did." Oh wait...that was you!
Amy - Broken promises given. I would take a thousand promises I bought into, rather than one I gave and broke. There have been too many and it shreds me still.
Jos - You and me both dear Citrus. But in craving a myth we will always go hungry. Let's practice the leaping bizzo together. How about off those rocks at Stonehenge? Bet they don't let you climb on those, do they? Your e-mails are always a treat!
Eric - Trying. It's those damn cement shoes!
Glenn - Only six degrees of punctuation! Thanks for letting me post them :)
After a particularly bad break up, I made a new rule for every guy that dated me: No promises. I didn't want to hear them, and I refused to make any towards anyone else. And I still do. "I promise to do my best to be there/to do that," is as good as I can do, and if I get married again, there will be no promises in the vows, just stating what there actually only is: good intentions, best laid plans, and at the end of the day, forgiveness towards ourselves and others for the miles and miles of broken promises that we walk upon each and every day of our life.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm....
ReplyDeleteTracy - Wise and solid as always my dear. Miles and miles of broken promises is harsh landscape. Glad there is forgiveness.
ReplyDeleteTravis - You sound pensive :)
We are not concrete. Sometimes I can't discern if this is a blessing in my life or a curse. Love.
ReplyDeleteI'm divorced, so hells yeah I understand broken promises!
ReplyDeleteI promise to stop drinking. I promise to stop looking at dirty pictures online. I promise I'll remember to get you some red Twizzlers at the grocery store.
I promise I'll promise, poke my eye with a needle if I die and lie, or however that goes. I lost my eyes a long time ago because of that, you know.
(We were loyal, at least we kept that promise...)
I let go of the rudder a long time ago. Eff it.
I sometimes writhe (ha! Typo, but how appropriate!) these flash-shorts, sort of fables like Aesop, and I call them Matsu-sama's Metaphorical Prose, because they are all about this Japanese guy who tries to change the world around him and loses every single time.
There's one in my head I haven't written yet, but Matsu-sama takes his Samurai sword and wades into the ocean and starts whacking the waves. They drowned his lover, and he is going to kill the sea.
Lots of these involve cranes.
- Eric
"Leap! And the net will appear." That's a definition of synchronicity I read somewhere, but I find it fits all of life.
ReplyDeleteI love the feeling of your write, dearest Annie. Keep on truckin'. (Grin).
Love & Blessings,
Marion
Dana - A little of both I'd imagine. As are most things.
ReplyDeleteEric W.- "Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye." I like the premise of Matsu-sama. I think it's true that whatever we try to control will eventually fail us. I love the image of Matsu-sama out there whacking away at the ocean as if it had a head, and a rattler. Damn if I don't see myself in that kind of fruitless ambition sometimes.
Marion - I had that T-shirt once...back in the day of bell-bottoms and flower power crap! I rocked the bell bottoms back then! Love you!
"I will never know tomorrow today, but it can know my feet...leaping." -- what a cool sentence!
ReplyDeleteAnnie, I am.
ReplyDeleteYup. What you said.
ReplyDelete