Her World on a String

I know a woman who keeps her world on the shortest leash imaginable. This overstuffed orb consists of all she feels she can control and nothing she cannot. It must be mind bending trying to keep all the plates spinning in the air, for if one crashes to the ground, it’s all over. All or nothing. And nothing scares the bejeezus out of her.

Nothing is what I strive for – nobody wrangling for attention around my ankles anymore, no mental mice racing on the cerebral hamster wheel, nothing obstructing my view, no plans, whenever possible. I seek nothing like a teen intent upon a scavenger hunt, but instead of discovering an old leather shoe or a vinyl record hidden in the crotch of a lichen-encrusted oak tree, I discover solace, blessed quiet, welcome respite from the nervous who natter on about nothing, from giant trucks belching diesel fumes and the flicker of neon. Instead I crave a steaming beverage and a good companion who understands that thoughts take time to birth themselves into words. If I cannot sit with a kindred soul with whom I can empathically discuss world events, philosophical leanings and the beauty of what last surprised us in nature, I’d rather be still.

The longer I live, the more I crave quality in daily interactions. The wordlessness of dogs is preferable to that of gossip; the serenity of sitting across the room from my husband intent on his reading grants my mind ease in a world fraught with tumult and chaos. A lack of resonance soothes the cilia of ears overwrought with the thrum of existence. The overworked fist of my heart craves slack time, a free-flowing whoosh of blood through capillaries like the fast-forward aerials of headlights on busy freeways – and I strive to grant it, whenever possible. It’s why I live as I do, in the naked blackness of star-struck oblivion; in the endless blue where sky meets sea.

The tintinnabulation of a city’s bustle and hum – metal against glass, hammers on asphalt – gives me no rest. At the end of the day my mind cannot cease its grasping, try though I might to engender calm. I don’t wonder at the plague of urban insomnia, for it was not all that long ago our ancestors matched movements with spade hitting soil, watching sun coming up over frosty fields spiked with the husks of dying crops. Before that we roamed, seeking food and shelter, a surplus of idle time not likely contemplated, much less craved. Technology has brought, among other things, a promise of release. Machines doing what used to gobble up our time have now become our obsession in and of themselves. In the place of honoring silence, we fill every nook and cranny with sound and sight and substance. We fashion a world that then needs orchestrating in its complexity. Ancient genes thrill to the hunt, and we rise to the challenge. To simplify seems unthinkable. The body breaks under the pressure, but we drive it on, ignoring subtle cues.

I know my friend is tired. You can see it in her drawn expression, the dullness that veils the light in her eyes. Some of us are doers, I guess, and some of us of necessity must simply be. And in holding the balance necessary to a world steeped in paradox, I leave her to her life with an unspoken whisper of gratitude just inside my lips. For the path I have chosen. For the choices I remain free to make.

 

image: Karl Frey