Feb 6, 2003
Quickening of the Pace
It has often felt as if I was being left behind. As if I was always running to catch up. To favorable plains those around me had already traversed. Accomplishments I thought I should have completed earlier. To a reputation I wanted to fulfill. I still feel as if I am running. But it's suddenly like the plain before me is widening. A great triangle and I am at the smallest point. And my running feels more like an effort to stay ahead than to get ahead. Everything I feared most has certainly come to pass. But it isn't as loathesome as I imagined. I think even the most awful things become tolerable. Eventually.
For the time being, I'm not catching myself asking, "What's the point of all this?" But rather, I struggle to get it all done and ask, "But how will I ever finish reading this book?" Busier than ever. Freer than ever. Tossed headlong into a freedom I didn't want. Loosed from bonds I had grown to love. They are cautious when they let baby animals who were raised in captivity out into the wild. Not all of them know how to get by. But some of them make it. And I suspect, in the language of their species, all the others of their kind whisper and gossip and admire the newcomers for having been places they've never been and having had experiences they can't share. To the wild ones, even captivity must seem an exotic change of pace.
That causes me to think of humans escaping their cubicles and vacationing at places like Club Med. But that's a tangent that diminishes the sentiment I intended.
posted by Mary Forrest at 1:34 PM | Back to Monoblog
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