“If you knew, what I know, would you try? Is there time? Is there time? To follow just one desire?”
She sang to me, the universe, a siren song of my own heart. I kept stories in my head like stones in my mouth, they whizzed around and around, unwritten and denied for years, as one would hum a song, over and over, until it either becomes a part of you or loses its meaning. I had denied myself the one true thing, the one thing I wanted so much; the fear took cause to spook it away, little demons of doubt on each shoulder.
She whispered to me, the universe, and in her own way, showed the shining promise of my untapped potential. I wasn’t floundering, but excelling. My life, as it stood, made absolute sense. But I found great power in choice. I let my future slip, feathery and silken, through my fingers and into the night. I released it and was free. I backed away, away from what everyone thought they knew of me, retreating within myself, nesting on a little golden secret, still too frightened to pursue. I remained motionless for a long time, until she called and I answered with a glad and eager heart.
There are moments when I am drunk with my gift; other times, when I am grieved with it. When I close my eyes, I see what will be, palpable, eventual; and yet, I am pulled away with such fierceness, I am left gasping. There is so much more I have to learn.
In the daylight of my life, this little bit of dream feels heavy, foolish, unrealistic. Who am I but someone who denied themselves for years, hiding in the sunny warmth of complacency? I have no training, no real means, no validation. How could I throw away the niche I worked so hard to carve, just to embrace the tiny, dark, impossible seed of what could be?
The universe has a way of whispering, of moving silently through your mind, undetected. Something stirred within my soul and then time moved with such a vengeance, I was hurtled through an abyss of my own making. Plucked from one world and planted in another, haphazardly somewhere between where I was, and where I will be. Does anyone have a map?
There is power in being lost in the right direction. The pull is delicious in its pursuit. But the universe is not without a sense of humor, not without a wry smile of struggle. Every time it moves within me, the muse of creativity (even right now, in this moment), I am foiled. The baby wakes in the middle of this beautifully cold and silent night, crying for me. Reality and writing, will they ever be reconciled?
The focus to do both escapes me and it is not until I am blow drying my hair, boots on, baby away and friends waiting, that I am sucked into the all-consuming tunnel of my own creativity. I have to be busy to draw inspiration, yet it is a busy life that prevents the expulsion of words that evaporate as quickly as they wet the walls of my mind. It is a blessing, this conundrum, struggling to find time to write about life, when one is, at the same time, consumed with living it. This is a gift. It comes with a price.
Welcome to Rabbit Heart.
