Disillusion

This morning I did that annoying thing where you cry over nothing. You know, nothing was wrong, objectively anyway. But something must be, because I seemed upset and possibly angry. And all I can think is that I feel like all I've done for the last 3 months is think, worry, plan and stress about moving to London, and even though I leave in five days, I still don't feel very ready. I thought that by now I'd be bursting with happiness and excitement, and while i'm certianly looking forward to being in London, I kind of just want to sit down on some big comfy pillows, curl up and not do anything. Yet I know myself too well, and I know my fear of uselessness, of being idle, of feeling like i've not achieved something with my day. I know my terrible inability to be still.

The cliche fear that runs beneath all this is obvious. Sometimes we're so worried about planning for some elusive life in the future we forget to live the life we have now, and that when you suddenly realise you've forgotten the now, you recieve a great big metaphorical slap in the face.

We hear this fear in the words of Thoreau, the literary motto of the Dead Poets Society, “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived."


We hear it in The Rose, by Amanda McBroom:
It's the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying
That never learns to live

I hear it in those beautifully broad and nasal tones of Natalie Maines:
...We're afraid to be idle, so we fill up the days, we run on the treadmill, keep slaving away, till there's no time for talking about trouble in mind, and the doors are all closed between your heart and mine...
(More Love, Robinson & Smokey)

and I hear it in my own life, all the time. When I am gripped by my own fear of mediocrity, when I realise I've worked a 60hour week (rare, but it happens), and the thought of staying in on a Friday night eating mashed potato you've made yourself seems like the best thing ever.

I hear the cliche in a slightly different mode when I recall the psalm that speaks loudest to me, psalm 46, 'Be still and know that I am God.' Because sometimes in order to live, and not just to plan, stress and worry, the reality is we need be still.

And so it is that I have chosen for the poem of the day 'Disillusion'. Strangely, I don't quite recall what exactly prompted me to write it, but its probably not such a bad thing to remind myself of the lessons that seemed so obvious to me then.

Poem 18, Disillusion, 11th April 2004 (Easter Sunday)

Stop. Hold still
Please, no more.
For once, I admit.
I am not sure.
I hate my mistakes,
I need to turn round.
The pieces are scattered
All over the ground.
Frustrated, I look
But I can’t find
A way to go back,
I can not rewind.
Its time to assess
Time to sit still
Time to finally, completely
Submit to God’s will.
Let go. Right now.
Push it away.
And just keep walking,
This is the day.