Another "Little Story"

To call a collection of words an essay seems presumptuous. What I offer is more akin to a "little story." I love to arrange words in an attempt to convey feelings, thoughts, wonderings and wanderings. So, with that in mind, I offer another little story.


A MOVING EXPERIENCE

They love the house. The house of my little girl dreams with its stone fireplace, bank of windows that open onto a stone washed patio and large flat grey rock steps connecting the patio and yard. And the view! Down the hill the lake shimmers and shines, working diligently at the job of reflecting the moody colors of the sky.
I’m packing the books, boxes and boxes of books. How did they all get here? One at a time I suppose, sometimes in stacks of three and four. All must go. All must make their way up the stairs and into the truck to go somewhere else.
I had no idea this would be so hard. I made the right decision. Selling is the logical thing to do. And I don’t want to.
This house was not ever home, not in the same sense the others weren’t. I never actually lived here, every day, day after day. And yet, I lived the moments here so very fully. I bought it a couple years ago when my son was in the process of opening a business here, a restaurant, an Italian restaurant. He and I know little about the restaurant business, how much food to order, who is capable and acceptable help… what recipes, what wines, what what what….and, before he even finished the remodel to the wonderfully old building in the historic district, his partner and he agreed to disagree. When the partnership dissolved before the place even opened, my son went on with his life and I found a renter for this house. He was a sweet man who, unfortunately, held the belief that paying rent was not necessary.

The red bird couple hops along the deck railing. He tilts his head from side to side. Lilly stands on point at the window, her back legs quiver ever so slightly from the fierceness of the stance. All 13 pounds of her is wound to capacity or maybe a notch past capacity. The birds are oblivious to the intense interest from the inside. Or are they? They hop cautiously side to side down the rail, picking up sunflower seed as they go.
The lake is now a steely gray puddle. The lack of rain diminishes its circumference daily.
Christmas carols blare from the stereo. Christmas again.
I don’t want to move. My heart hurts. There is a ferocious battle waging between my heart and my head, the Cartesian dilemma once again: Cogito ergo sum. Thinking reins supreme. It is what separates me from the beast of the field and the birds of the air or so I suppose. When taken at first blush, many of the books about the newest concepts of reality seem to propose that thinking, or at least the vehicle of awareness that allows us to know we think, is the basis of all reality. Consciousness, according to many physicists and philosophers, is the defining characteristic of the Kosmos. It is the matrix from which all arises. I take issue with this, even though I do make most of my choices with what I label logic rather than emotion.
Sometimes, my assumption is that consciousness, thinking, and awareness are the same process. There could be much quibbling about definitions, and each can be approached as one aspect of the same whole, an aspect of the Mystery. Or each can be isolated, examined as a singularity. My argument with this worldview is that it, once again, anthropomorphizes the mystery that is participation in the Mystery. When human characteristics are pasted on the unfathomable and inexplicably unanswerable questions, it results in the diminishing of the myth. It distills the ocean of Knowing to a puddle of knowing.
A friend recently told me he has never known another woman who is so ruled by her logic. I answered, “I am off balance. To allow my head, my logic to rule my life has been as problematic as to approach life from the other side.”
Where is the balance? How does one live with logic and with heart? Either can be a tyrant. And, at the moment, my heart is winning the battle. Logic is whimpering from the assault, but the deed is done, the offer accepted, the closing date set.

Stretched out on the floor along the windowed wall, I wonder, “In a different reality, if I visit a parallel universe, what should I do? What should I have done? Give me an answer? What is the best choice? What is the right choice? Is there a “best,” a “right?”
“No.”
“No.”
The answer is “No.” I must make the choices. I must experience the consequences. I must choose the “yes” and the “no.”
But I want to know that what I choose is the best!
There is no “best.” The only way best is part of the process is in the concept that all is best. Every choice, every breath is the one chosen for that moment. It is the best. Why would anyone ever intentionally choose to do less than their best? Even to choose to do poorly is sometimes the best choice for the situation at that particular moment.


This in not what I want to hear from my inner explorations, so I muddle on.
How many times in my life has head won over heart? Large and small victories. Which is the leader? How to effect a balance when so many decisions are not amenable to both/and?
Love and duty? Love and commitment? Love and …

The sun is making its slide toward the horizon and darkness will soon possess the land, here anyway. I have no answers. Maybe I have no questions. Maybe everything is simply the process of question and answer.