The Cure for Heartbreak

I have found the cure for heartbreak.
It was hidden in a small nook behind my left ear.
Stuck for too long tangled in a strand of my own hair,
Which had grown wild and a little long under the admiring gaze of a man.
Who knew it was there?
When I retrieved it, it shook itself off and stretched,
As a dog might, just before he is invited for a walk.
It smiled and winked and explained itself.
"Distraction," the cure said simply.
I said nothing, attentive to what other wisdom it might offer.
It remained silent for awhile, perched in the palm of my hand,
Gazing out at the world of humans, with all of its' drudgery and drama and impermanence.
And at the trees in their rooted stillness.

Then the cure smiled at me,
Its' little brownish face sleep-wrinkled but clear-eyed.
I was impatient for more.
"Distraction?", I asked.
"That's right," said the impish creature,
Stretching out across my palm.
Propping itself up on an elbow,
It looked up at me with a cheeky glint.
"Because you people will not stay put long enough to see how it goes.
You don't have the patience, or the stamina.
And have trouble standing for long enough in your own pain,

To see it's end."

Fresh Tracks

A few years ago a friend of mine was struggling, and he started talking about the idea that it was a 'pattern' he had with a specific aspect of his life. He pained over the idea that again and again he had found himself feeling stuck in a familiar set of circumstances. Looking at the storyline, the only pattern I saw was one of perception. The suffering was built out of the idea that something about the way he moved through his life was intrinsically wrong and needed resolving. That somehow the actions, behaviours and even feelings of the other people in his life were a function of his own unconscious patterns.

I may be about to suggest something unpopular, or even wrong. But I have a wondering that perhaps we have gone too far in our love of the pattern diagnoses.

I'm sure it's true that each of us has certain tendencies, like snow being pushed into drifts and cornices on a certain aspect of a slope, under the influence of some wind generated in the vaults of our unconscious selves. But it seems overly simplistic to view our choices and mistakes (if there is such a thing) always through this lens of patterning.  To suggest that every time we find ourselves in a seemingly similar situation - having started or failed to start, lost or ended a relationship being the obvious example - that we are repeating a pattern. It's an idea that's popular, but seems off to me. What if that's what life is made of - beginnings and endings? I could be in denial and maybe there are people out there that see me more clearly than I see myself who would say that I am a patterned animal, showing my stripes in identical ways over and over. Or maybe just in the fact that I still do, at my age, enter into, and leave or lose things - jobs, people, homes, pets. Maybe I am the living breathing poster child for all things patterned. Or maybe shit happens and dreams are born and lost and born again and it's up to us what to do with that.

To me, the pattern idea doesn't capture the complex richness of relationships. Love, loss, grief, joy, fear; they are so layered, alive. We are ever-learning, ever-growing creatures. Life is surprising;  presuming to pigeonhole it's evolution and ever-changing textures seems arrogant and one-dimensional. To reduce our human experiences with each other and with the world as if we are wedged into a same-old-same-old groove seems well... unimaginative. We are creative beings, surely once in a while we do something new? Is dropping an old story line that complex? Is it possible, sometimes, to just move out of or into something for the most simple and right reasons? Do we always need to punish ourselves and others for the process of transition?

Maybe I'm playing at semantics here. Because it's not that I don't perceive things in my own life that are echoes of other times, terrain traps that I sometimes find myself being sucked into. But I know that I am a different person now than I was before. Am I defined (other than by some outdated societal norms) by the fact that I've never been married? By my history of beginnings and endings? My relationships have been far from identical to one another, and while there have been a few themes emerging from the narrative maybe they are not defining.  There are outliers. I can't afford to look outward or inward thinking that we are all making the same choices, over and over again. Doomed to relive past hurts in a new form. My experience has been more diverse than that. And I feel hopeful, for myself and for others. Maybe we're all free to decide what we make of the what's-next and the what-went-down-before.

This slope ahead of us is expansive; so clean and rich with possibility. Why do we obsess over what's behind us and the switchbacked labour of the uptrack, when we could just allow ourselves to perceive the untouched lines stretching out before us? If we lean forward (just slightly) and let go, there are fresh tracks to be had.

Underground

Have I lost my way? My dreams tell me something is up, but they are a moving and ethereal target, images made of mist and whispers. These days I just feel lost, purposeless, apathetic to the things that usually summon up my life force. I still puzzle over what is unfinished, but less in the devilish details and more in the way of the immutable watercolour shades of feelings, ideas. My sense of things and how they are shifts like vapour across a dark palette. But I am at home here, certain of nothing. Although sadness seems to wash up on my beach more days than not right now, that is fine by me, as I know it passes. It is seasonal, and though I feel it it does not overtake me.

I once told myself and another that I was impulsive, but that is not the case. More so I am quick and sure when I move to my heart's song. I waffle and hedge when I am out of tune with it, but find it hard to catch myself there. I look outside myself for answers, seeking counsel from the wind and anyone else who will answer. I convince myself that my gut must be wrong, am convinced by others who want to see me land...somewhere. Commit to something. Which is fair, we are all hopeful, and we all wish to see the people we love, or care about, or see as somehow lost find their way to a good home. Like stray dogs, wayward hearts are not always easy to behold.

Do I continue to trust that the path will reveal itself? To believe that there are no wrong moves, only options, diversions, forks. Fate as a conglomeration of all the choices I have ever made.

Last night I found myself contemplating another change of tack, a backwards glance at the things I used to love and sometimes miss tempting me to pull up stakes again. Maybe I would find myself there? I could initiate another swing of the cross-continental pendulum to rediscover the ever-white winters of my youth, the warm rivers where I built so many friendships. The thought of leaving again both comforts and terrifies me. The loss of momentum, interruptions to the building connections of this coast, represent the latter. But here I have also struggled to find my place, a sense of belonging, community. I have experienced a heartbreak here that has morphed in some ways, but left an indelible mark, and perhaps intensified my feelings of not fully being welcomed by this temperate coastline. A harsh kind of rejection, as if the fabric of the land itself cannot find a place for me, even in the deep moss of the forest or the fine sun-crisped sand of the outer edge of this island. In some moments, the idea of going back, even for a short time, feels like a balm to the unhealed parts of me. But I know that is illusory, and while I know there is change afoot, I am not sure that it is a geographical one. Staying put does not always come easily, it takes effort. Opportunities can seem fickle but are perennial.

So for this week I feel adrift and unsure, and have a feeling like I have lost the seeds of who I am. It is spring, but I have no idea what or where to start sewing what comes next. Maybe I already have, but this long winter is delaying the arrival of the new green, and I can't see yet what's coming up. And I understand as always that all this, the good and the bad, the vibrant and the listless, is impermanent. So much lies underground.
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