An Overview of a Moment

Just thinking that perhaps I ought to take stock of my life at this moment, see if I can get an overview, or at least a sense of one, of the ‘where I’ve been, where I’m at, and where I’m going’ variety. This feels important to do now for some reason, as if I’ve come to a mental crossroad, and I need to be forward-facing the right direction, resolutely taking leave of what’s behind me.

I have been a relentless reader since I could read, let’s face it, a big bookworm. It is something I’ve never ever outgrown, not even for a minute. It is the one thing I could NOT love more. Everything and everyone else has come and gone in my life, except for my love of reading. It means a lot in someone whose life’s theme is change, that this one thing stands like a faithful beacon of light amidst the elements of a fickle nature :). It is true I also love change, but there are times when I don’t want change, which is never the case with reading.

I suppose I would love writing just as much, if insatiability isn't at the core of my personality (Enneatype 7). I eat and eat and eat books, and seldom stop long enough to see what I am to do with it, perhaps not even to burp. When I was still quite young I used to write short pieces of prose, for fun, for myself. They were lighthearted, even dreamlike, impressions I had from my childhood days. The last piece I wrote when I was 15, a personal essay about leaving my homeland and moving to Canada. Then nothing (except for school) until the last couple of months.

It’s interesting to see how my writing has always been emotionally descriptive and detailed, rather ‘wet’, I would say, and in sharp contrast to how I appear as a person, thoughtful, aloof, and reticent. ‘Dry’, I would say. Gemini on the outside, Pisces on the inside, like a yellow M&M.

But what I want now is not so much to change that, but to move on in the natural progression of things. I’ve eaten long and plenty, it’s time to pump up the digestive juices and assimilate the goodies. It feels like this is where I’m at, in the early stage of assimilation, allowing nutrients to be absorbed and sent to the appropriate destinations for the next stage, synthesis, which has also begun, where the necessary parts and bits can be created, manifested into form, and finally purpose can be fulfilled in movement and function. This is how creativity (of body and of soul) comes into full expression, the way I see it.

But the overview of all this, my body tells me, is more than what I’ve gotten down so far. There is more to where I’m going, but in this instance the physical kind. I will travel for more ‘eating’, and the subsequent digesting, assimilating, and so on. This will be new ‘food’ for fodder for me, as I’ve never travelled extensively.

That’s it, my body says.

Funny how the image of eating long and plenty at a familiar table brought to mind the numerous dreams I’ve had of being at a banquet. Perhaps this is giving me new insights about my dreams, that banquets are about my insatiability, markets and stores are about my wanderlust and aimlessness, and toilets are about suppressed and wasted creative potentials. These are issues I’ve been into deeply and all around in my innerwork, and my dreams have been a beloved, constant companion (I think of dog, my first and best friend) to me all these years. I thank you everlastingly, my dreams.
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Had a serendipitous experience just now, at Dufflet Bakery, where I went to get Michael a little birthday cake and treat myself to an away-from-home reading/musing time with an iced coffee and lemon tart. On the way there I had gone into Midoco Art Supplies on an impulse and asked about job application, thinking that working 5 minute-walk away from home would be a pretty good deal. By the time I tucked into my coffee and tart I noticed that I had a tension headache. For a couple of seconds I allowed myself to think it might be the coffee, but BONK! went the clarion to the head, again, and the light went on, again. I have betrayed my true self yet another time, by looking for a just-for-the-money job, when I’ve just been told by my dreams not to prostitute myself, merely a day ago, and POW! a headache blooms red and loud pretty much instantly... Now I know how the Catholics feel, having to repent and confess a sin they’ve committed over and over again, or perhaps more like Peter the Disciple, denying Christ 3 times in a row despite his best intentions to be true to his master...

The flesh is indeed weak, and the devil lives in our fears... yet, I am amongst the blessed that I am warned time and again from straying off my true path, and suffering no greater repercussion than a few metaphysical bonks to the head. God is truly merciful, I think, for the first time in my life.