When life speeds up it becomes like USA TODAY: lots of pictures, lots of headlines, not a lot of content. Life becomes blurbs; sound bites bridging the present and the next. I can't focus on the here because the next is just too looming or shiny. I'm even ADHD in the abstract.
One of my mentors, who loves me enough to actually care about my bullshit, asked me about my heart and I honestly didn't have an answer—it's like going so much negates all but the most banal of voices, those of sleep, eat, shit, shut up and drink. I don't know where my heart is, what it is feeling because I haven't stopped to let it catch its metaphorical breath (I picture my heart as a mildly wheezy kid with over-sized glasses and an analytical nature that makes the rest of me roll our collective eyes) long enough to formulate an opinion. I'm busy but maybe I'm also running, I don't know.
At the same time I'm very happy with life so the things from which I'd be running are cursory and not so looming as to necessitate the fight or flight so I don't know why I'd be back on my heels in the first place. Maybe speed walking; maybe a brisk pace but running no. I feel like there should be something I'm running from, should be something I'm supposed to turn and fight but at this point I feel like I'd just be making it up for the sake of the fight (insert lots of American historical war references here) rather than the need to reclaim or defend. Maybe I'm busy because I have a lot going on and not for any other reason than that. How novel.
"So what in the world's come over you
And what in heaven's name have you done
You've broken the speed of the sound of loneliness
You're out there running just to be on the run"
--John Prine "Speed is the Sound of Loneliness"
1 comment:
I think you hit it at the end. Maybe you're just in a good place and are not used to being able to just say, 'You know what? I'm fine.'
As is happy, content, alright. But also F-I-N-E fine, as in 'You must be a parking ticket because you have fiiiine written all ova'.
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