This playful--if slightly apocalyptic--Hy-Art consists of a Matador and horse from Manet, a train from Dali, and a sailboat from Maureau, all going over waterfalls by Church. This is a little bit like the process of getting sober, if, when you hit the river below, you bounced back up and then continued onto a much more placid river than the rapid-strewn one you left above.
That plunge is pretty scary. It's pretty much your first leap of faith in years, maybe ever. You've been thinking for years that another drink, another puff, another [insert substance or behavior] is the leap of faith, because who knows what you'll do when you're high, what exciting thing might happen? Eventually, what happens is extremely predictable. Some of us isolate, some of us foist ourselves on others, some of us hunt for sex until we find it, (and then start hunting for something better as soon as we do), even the chaos some of us create can end up feeling very repetitive. There is no routine so dismal as an arrest and processing, I can reassure you.
The real adventure is the one in which you stay 100% present to your experience, taking the next indicated step and embracing the fact that you if do A,B, and C; the D you envisage is not always the result. Let's say D, instead, is the decision of a boss, and then E is an unexpected illness, and F is that argument with a loved one. Suddenly you're at G.
When you live your life as trying to control and strangle the desired results out of your choices, then you are disoriented and pissed. You didn't want G, you wanted D, and the D you wanted look very diffferent from the D that occured and definitely different from the G you're experiencing. Sometimes you'll do all sorts of stupid things to get back to the D that you insist should have happened.
When you live along spiritual lines, (for which sobriety is a requirement if you're an addict, but is a life available to anyone), you live life as one big alphabet, God being the fact that the direction goes from A to Z. If you were aiming at D, when you get to F, you realize instinctively that you're closer to Z. (And when you get there, you start over. Did I mention the alphabet's in a circle?)
I'm perpetually and pleasantly surprised by how much farther I progress on the alphabet when I accept everything exactly the way it is. Wherever I am is the right place to be. Sometimes there are rapids, often even waterfalls, but I just keep rowing in the direction of the river. I know what it's like to paddle upstream--it's exhausting.
Oh dear, I've switched metaphors mid-blog. I think that would be my cue to post and walk the dog.
MCO 2008
P.S. I got a new subtitling editing gig. HOORAY!
nice post. very true- that leap of faith. i find it not always easy to remember that i am going to be somewhere other than where i am at the time. that remains a challenge for me. but then i'm happy i still have work to do.
Is it okay to close one's eyes before one leaps?