It's that old 'ripple effect', and while it is an awesome process at the unfolding, it is rather difficult to encapsulate and articulate without sounding as though I am heavily dosed on Lysergic Acid Diethylamide; which I can assure you I have not ingested in well over three decades.
But like anything else, deep thought and introspection have their own protocols, which usually begin with an explosion of small, seemingly unrelated thoughts that don't have any immediately obvious bearing on the question at hand.
The temptation is to dismiss them, but I've found that to be a mistake. The older I get, the more apparent it is that absolutely everything in the universe is connected; and if that is the case, then the same rule applies to our thoughts. It is very much like dreams that seem random and wild until closer inspection reveals a viable thread connecting one level of our unconscious thought to another in our conscious understanding.
And so my question is: Why has there existed throughout my life the dynamic that not only places me outside the interactive loop of relationships in general but also ultimately implodes the rare and precious bonds I am able to cultivate?
In looking back over fifty-four years I realize that almost from the beginning of me extraneous circumstances occurred which set the stage for this specific outsider dynamic to play out. At various times in my life I have certainly been aware that some force existed beyond anything I could orchestrate and execute on my own, yet it didn't occur to me that these were anymore than random interchanges or unhappy coincidences until well into my teens.
My tendency towards skepticism and cynicism was much more pronounced when I was younger, but it seems that with age I have grown tired of fighting the tides of evidence mounting against my argument that this is all there is, and I have become convinced that as stand-alone human beings, we could never get the job done; that we would never understand why we exist or what our purpose truly is unless some element or power or force greater than we are fed us healthy clues.
The first incident I can recall which infused my sensibilities with a permanent awareness that there was a much more reliable connection between myself and a world unseen happened when I was three years old.
It was winter, and I was appropriately stuffed into a thick, light blue snow suit replete with hood, clip-on-mittens and snow boots. As warm as this getup was, it severely restricted my mobility so that when I slipped on the icy snow at the edge of the creek I was playing near and tumbled in, I could do little more than flop on my backside and literally go with the flow.
I remember lying on my back and looking up at the sky and the snowy bank through the icy lens of water as it rushed over my face but feeling no fear whatsoever. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I experienced a peace as perfectly acceptable as falling asleep. Perhaps I would have done just that had I not also heard the soft voice of a woman that said simply, "Not yet, Susan".
In that same instant a hand was on my arm, hoisting my water-logged mass to safety. I don't doubt I was in shock, but even with my awareness temporarily stunted I was busy visually canvassing the surrounding terrain to locate the woman whose remarkable communications skills allowed her to speak to me so clearly under water.
Although I never found her, I did know my rescuer, Mrs. Sarno, whose house it was that stood on the property. As she told my mother, she just happened to be cleaning the upstairs bathroom, looked out the window and witnessed my tumble into the chilly waters. Normally, I would have been playing with her daughters, but for whatever reason that day I was not. For her to even be looking out that window was unusual since both of her children were inside the house.
But the moment I heard that calming voice, I had the immediate understanding that not only was there a choice involved about whether I should stay or drown, but that if I stayed, it was not going to be an easy ride and that it would often be a lonely one. However, I also became aware in that I would not be without some avenue of recourse or form of comfort no matter how difficult the journey or how dark it would occasionally become.
How I internalized those complex options at that young age I do not know. But I do know that immediately after that incident I began to feel an intense connection to this unseen realm, which was necessary because within weeks another accident occurred that signaled my official relocation to that realm 'outside' of acceptable.
It happened on a Saturday and just as any indentured offspring in 1950's suburbia, I was summarily forced to accompany my parents on their round of Saturday errands.
At some point we ended up at a hardware store with large, thick and heavy glass double-doors.
My parent's were at the counter making their purchases, however, boredom had gotten the better of me and I was loitering near the glass doors anxious for the fun to end so we could all go home and have lunch.
I don't remember whether or not I was wearing that cursed, light blue snow suit, but I did have on the horrible, clip-on mittens; and my hands were moist with perspiration and salted with the sandy residue of my earlier attempts to create a snowman in our backyard sandbox. I was hot and impatient to both eat and play, so when another customer opened one of the doors to leave, I impulsively grasped the stationary door with my mittened right hand.
Big mistake. Of course, the door slammed shut well before I thought to remove my hand, and it resulted in the quick dismemberment of the top portion of my right thumb. I don't think I cried right away, but when I witnessed the panic on my parent's faces as they took notice of all the blood once my mitten was removed and discarded, the floodgates opened for me as well.
Naturally, my father drove us immediately, albeit somewhat recklessly, to the hospital where they promptly sent him back for the mitten and the missing portion of my thumb; the hope being that it could be reattached. Unfortunately, thanks to my earlier sandbox exploits, that hope was dashed; but they were able to perform surgery utilizing skin grafts and after many months of painful, weekly bouts of cutting and sculpting at the doctor's office, I was left with a pretty decent thumb.
It is decidedly shorter then it's left-handed mate and has a permanent divot at the tip that tends to crack and bleed when the weather gets cold or my hands get too dry, but it serves as a perpetual reminder that I am flawed, fallible and vulnerable and had better curb my impulsive behavior or I'm liable to lose an entire limb. It was a blessing that I was able to grow a fingernail, and although it is a tad crooked and tends to fold over when it gets long, it readily masks the obvious. Few adults have ever even noticed it.
Unfortunately, children are far more attentive to these sorts of macabre details then are adults, and once the word got around the kindergarten classroom of my appalling abnormality, any hopes I might have entertained about fitting in and belonging were dashed. No one wanted to touch my hand and cootie shots were liberally dispensed whenever the teacher or the circumstances mandated someone do so.
The playground was another matter because there was no acting authority present admonishing the students to 'play nice'. I grew to anticipate and loathe the rhyme, "tick-tock the game is locked and nobody else can play."
But it was during those playground sessions that I mastered the art of entertaining myself by initiating those deep, soul-space journeys into the vast cosmos of inner thought; and I accustomed my heart to the fact that, although the other kids were not opposed to speaking with me in class, sharing pencils and papers or even inviting me to their birthday parties; there was a line that I was never to cross and it involved physical contact, specifically as it applied to my right hand.
I'm not looking for sympathy here. That is not my point. I had a pretty good childhood and although my teens and early twenties were tumultuous at best, they were nothing I could not handle as evidenced by my sitting here writing all this today. In fact, a good portion of the turmoil was completely self-appointed, and I take full responsibility for those lapses in sanity.
As you will see, if I explain myself clearly, the salient objective here is not to illustrate how sad it is to be placed on the outside of the in-crowd or to indict anyone else for ostensibly holding me there.
In fact, it is precisely the opposite. It is to show that every single life has a plan, and if you truly want to know and understand what that plan is (or to accept what it is not), you need to be open to recognizing patterns and the deeper truths behind them.
I use myself as an example only because I have intimate knowledge of my own life and the patterns as they have revealed themselves, plus I have given myself permission to expose them. ( It is an unwritten contract but legally binding, which states that if I step on my own toes, I cannot sue myself for liable. However, I am fully entitled to regrets and some harsh self-recrimination, if necessary.)
If I take my desire alone, I would say that overwhelmingly it indicates someone who not only aims to please but who wants to 'right' everything. Growing up I was always bringing home stray animals from lost dogs to wounded ducks; and as I got older, I switched to people.
My desire to be involved in and to 'repair' what I perceived as broken superseded all logic, fear and sense of boundaries to such an extent that, if I were not forcibly remanded to the outside of the ring, I would not only have placed myself heavily at risk (not everyone is nice, duh), but it is a safe assumption that I would have gotten so embedded in the mire of humanity that I would have lost all sense of objectivity as well as have wasted a lot of time.
However, because throughout my life circumstances have continually dictated my placement being along the rim of relationships rather than in the middle of them, I've been in the fortunate position of being able to study and explore anything I wanted to. Had I been more socially acceptable I would not have had the time nor the inclination to devote the hours I have to art, writing and all the various courses of study I've had the privilege to dive into.
And if I hadn't indulged myself in those areas, I wouldn't be who and what I am in this moment. I would be living a more distracted, interactive life too preoccupied schmoozing, gabbing and filling the world with fluffy smiles and finger sandwiches to leave room for much serious introspection or spiritual exploration. Not that there isn't room for smiles and finger sandwiches, those are always welcomed. But I'd like to believe that my art and my words might have slightly more lasting and transformational potential then would a toothy grin and cucumber and creamcheese sans the crusts.
Look, living large in the outer limits definitely has its advantages; one of them being that you can develop a talent for letting go and moving on plus an insatiable hunger for understanding and an appetite for wisdom that is often a natural consequence of being alone so much. I think it is a cosmic law or something.
And I suppose that the lesson in the radical dissolution and redefinition of these more recent and important friendships of mine serves more as an admonition not to place too much emphasis or depend too heavily upon such relationships because, in the end, they might wind up being counter productive;
especially given my predilection for hyper-focusing and overkill. In other words, I'd miss ten thousand opportunities for growth for the sake of one.
All I know is that every morning I wake up with a festering apprehension that I have nothing more to say or to paint or to write or to create, or to live for; and every day I am proven wrong.
In the end it becomes a choice to host optimism and to continue to listen to and trust that internal voice that still says, "Not yet, Susan." As long as I can do that, I'm golden.
