I know the tiles on my kitchen floor by heart, even the
minute brush strokes that differentiate their twirly fleur de lises. I could
tell you which of my yellow windowsills is peeling the worst, the sounds the
porch makes when there’s a thunderstorm, and the exact number of posts in my
white, wooden fence that barricades my land from intruders. I know my wood floor's creaky planks by heart too. I can walk across the
living room without making a sound, which is a feat if you’ve ever trotted across my groggy floors.
I’ve memorized the ocean’s horizon from my western kitchen
window and the country meadows that starkly transform into mile high mountains on the eastern side.
I know the ridges, valleys and patches of purple and grey by heart, and
sometimes I wonder what it would be like to roam those wild hills and experience
whatever mysteries hide beyond them, but then the kettle starts to whistle and I jump. My
heart stops and I’m brought back to reality.
I never venture off my land. There’s
no room to make mistakes and do stupid things whose outcomes can’t be
predicted. Control, predictability, responsibility and perfection have been my
closest companions for longer than I can remember—I can’t imagine how I would
exist without them. And, as a result, my soul has lived most of its life behind
my hazy yellow and peach colored walls, securely guarded by my white fence and
a world of wonderfully familiar order. My days are simple and “right” in all the
ways that you can do things “right”. In fact, I’m obsessed with being right (Its so bad I could be the first born
who has the identity crisis whenever she steps off her 10-speed performance
treadmill.)
Last week I realized that while accomplishing all of my "work" I've missed
sunsets. Many sunsets. I’ve only seen one or two sunsets where the pink melted
into yellow and purple and orange and then trickled into gold. I was so busy
being productive and so afraid of wasting time that I never felt freedom to
allow myself to absorb them.
And I’ve missed the warm rainy days too, where the
air smells sweet. I can’t remember the last time I danced like a crazy women
from a long lost tribe of Eden, letting my gratitude spill out of my feet and
into the soil. I’ve been deterred at the thought of unnecessary messes and mud
stains and leaving the doors unlocked for too long and getting behind in real and profitable “work.” But I think that beneath all
of the practicality I’m really afraid. It’s funny how practicality is an
easy guise over wounds that go too deep…
So I’ve stayed glued and chained to my twenty square foot
block of existence, calling it my “duty” when it’s really my codependent
counterpart. Familiarity, I think, is the best disguise of all… a true counterfeit. Familiarity it robs us of the joy of the journey, beckoning us to feed
in its shadows, whispering that we’ll be ruined if we ever leave its clutches.
The weird this is that we’re never really happy in it’s cozy little hide, just
afraid that it will be taken away from us. I know that fear because it’s the second
wall that surrounds my house, never letting down its guard, except for the wee hours of the night.
I had a realization two weeks ago: I live to maintain my
pristine and unscathed slate. In fact, I often get so caught up in doing the
right thing and being productive that I completely miss out on the beauty in front of me. “Don’t do this,” “don’t do that,” “go here,” “don’t go there…”
Suddenly, I saw my life stretched out before me and it ended with this tiny
shriveled woman. Her shoulders were hunched, her brow furrowed, her neck jutted
out and her gaze was down. She had lived in the house with yellow and peach
walls her entire life. She’d never, except on one or two very rare occasions,
stepped beyond the borders of the white fence. She spent every day worrying if
she’d made the right decisions, wondering if God was pleased with her, pacing
back and forth, looking out the windows, doing dishes and knitting, knealing
and praying and talking to herself. She was ever and always wrapped in a cloud
of anxiety and fear.
The picture made me shutter but before it ended someone else
appeared. She had rosy sunburned cheeks, bright, warm eyes, and a voice
that laughed at fear. She wore tall boots and a backpack with a goofy mountaineering
jacket. She danced down the house’s front porch unlatched the white gate, blew
the front window a kiss and stated: “I’ll come back to
you once I’ve had my next adventure.” She stuck out her hip, lifted up her
right thumb, and found a ride to the next city in the back of a flat bed truck.
And I don’t know all the places she went, but there were many places and some
mistakes, but she lived more in one day than the old woman had in an entire
century.
