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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