Christmas in July Part 1

I started reading “wintering”. Jumped out at me like a like-minded friend. Perhaps its time I allow myself to truly winter. 

Theres a part of me that is stuck somewhere below the surface, watching as I blunder through this making the same mistakes over and over. It bubbles up occasionally, causing me to flood myself with temporary guilt and self hatred. You’d think this would be enough to cause hesitation and change, but instead I continue to throw myself against my own boundaries giving myself a laundry list of regret at the end of the day. I’ve been looping from feelings of desperation and tenacity, to utter rebellion and a sense of complete nonchalance.

As I look at my path in retrospection, I wonder if I ever really let myself settle in. Last time I felt “settled”, was really just complacency with suppressed sexual desires. I “settled” into my lifestyle and poured myself into what I thought was my “inner work”. I developed a false sense of independence, and a strong desire to keep up with my new found sense of self. As the deep lakes of my subconscious really started to churn, the surface level work I was doing wouldn’t cut it anymore. It wasn’t enough that I was committed to clean eating, committed to my full time job, committed to this yoga practice. It wasn’t enough that I cared about toxins and recycling and therapeutic communication. I read the right books, I did the right things, and I still found myself on a precipice of self discovery, asking if I was going to jump? Or should I do the safe thing?

Never the safe thing, obviously, this is a memoir.

The humidity has dropped and I’m actually a bit chilly. Tucked between my wife’s legs with a blanket, the moisture of the grass sinks in through my tights. But it is still a beautiful evening. Fireworks light up the sky, great spectacles of gold and white showers, sparks of red and green. And I notice, as the show goes on, that they start to take on a faded opaque appearance. The sky is filing up with smoke, smudging up the twilight backdrop. The sharp, clear image of the fireworks, now seems burnt out and faded. Each burst appearing with the same gusto as before, but because of the smoke build up, they cannot shine bright enough against it.

 I am reminded of our own inner sparks, and how we can spin our wheels again and again, but if our backdrop is clouded, it can seem like we aren’t getting the same results. Every so often we need to let the dust settle. If we work incessantly, we leave no time for integration and reflection. We can no longer see our spark through all the impressions we have left. We have to let the work sink in before we can add more. 

And it’s nights like these, in this thick July heat, the weight of my decisions threatens to bring me to my knees. Oppressive and obsessive, my past tries to suffocate me. The heaviness of life comes unrelenting. Before you know it, a middle aged face meets you in the mirror. Full of frown lines and laugh lines. The starry eyes of my youth, now hollow & haunted. 

And so, I feel the concept of wintering calling to me, beckoning me close so that I can smell the sweet, savory flavors of coziness and warmth and slowing down. Long mornings and quaint coffee shops, fresh cut flowers in the kitchen, sunshine across the wood floors…

To be continued…