Augustine: Falling

Dear Athena,

I found this quote in a book think you would enjoy reading, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

"Do you remember the summer of the rain… You must let everything fall that wants to fall." - Karen Fisher.

 

I'm staying at my parent's this week while they are out of town. It's strange to have so much time and space to myself. I usually have plenty of time to myself at the house with the guys, but that is crafted and means staying in certain areas or negotiating space even if we do it with our awareness instead of words. Here, I walk move from room to room with no hesitation I'm about to come upon someone. There is no need to be anywhere or feeling that I shouldn't take up a space. It's so freeing to feel entirely able to follow a whim or desire and there be no one else to offend. My heart clinched up when I first came down to the house and moved some of my boxes in, when I realized I would start living here again and won't know when I move out. It felt like a sign of failure, an embarrassment. I spent all day exercising thinking I'd be able to burn it off, but my dreams last night were about my old job.

 

I woke up this morning and got out of bed. That may not seem like an amazing feat, but usually I spend time inoculating myself to being awake with some type of social media. It's like escapism for having woken up in my own body with my own problems. But today I went down and made coffee and let the dog out. I didn't have to question how many people I would make coffee for, or whether I could sit and read on the deck, or if I needed to pick up everything when I was done. I thought about what "I needed to do today" and looked at my list, but realized that it could be whatever I felt until later this evening when I have dinner and art projects with a friend. I didn't even mean to start writing this till another reflective thought struck me. I've already had a month off, but there is something about finally being alone that has allowed to appreciate the lack of productivity. There is no one to witness it and therefore it can just 'be' without judgement. I imagine that I was grasping the edge for so long, knowing that once I let go I would begin to fall so I held tighter and harder. But no one can go on holding forever. So I let go and I've been terrified of the fall and what happens when I land. "How could you let go?" Trying to find ways to still hold on "What if you can tried holding differently, or yelled once more for help?" when the edge is gone, out of sight, but still cutting up my mind.

 

A time passes though and I find the time spent falling to be boring but also luxurious. A solitude to the air rushing past me and now just a curiosity as to what will happen when I land. "What is at the bottom of all this? Who is to say?" Left to my thoughts for long enough and I can begin to recognize and categorize them. The fear of the landing, the wondering of what it will be like at the bottom, the desperation of wishing I was still grasping to the top, the anger at everyone who didn't prevent this from happening, the dual self-loathing and pity for now being here, the enjoyment of being in a freefall and all the fun I can have while it lasts. Pema Chodron would call this all "thinking;" to "touch the chatter and let it go."  Anne Lammott would help me to visualize it as the mice that won't top chattering in their glass jars; "Turn up their volume for a moment, hear it all, then turn it all down." I don't remember what Madeleine would say, but I'd imagine she would have me sit by a babbling brook in her circle of quiet and give me a happy buddha to look at. I find myself at this moment of falling feeling grateful to all the women who have found themselves falling before. No particular thoughts, but a warm sense of compassion for myself knowing they would have the same.

 

We pray to Alice, the patron saint of those who are find themselves endlessly falling, that we may find ourselves bored of the terror and chatter of our own fears. That we may consider and then let go of all the things that led us to be here and become curious and unafraid of what lies for us at the end of it. We pray to find compassion for ourselves in the falling enough that the air that rushes past will become as a soft support as we drift to sleep.