All Of It
/
We all dream, at times, about a different world, wishing we could live another life. We all fantasize, at some point, an escape from our conditions, wishing to be transported to a place where we could thrive.
How do your inner and outer worlds interact?
If you could live your dream life, but only if it came with unseen downsides, with its own trials and triumphs, potentially risking all that you now love, and perhaps even consequences worse than those that challenge your life as it is, would you take it?
© Nick LeForce
All Rights Reserved
Weathermen predict a storm will descend on Sacramento today with anticipated flooding in many areas. Early morning streets are wet. Raindrops hang on the window like tiny universes, each clinging to the clear surface, giving the glass a mottled effect of silvered spots, the glass giving the drops a lifetime to play out their birth, evolution, and decay. Looking at my calendar, at the day empty of appointments, I see another window, this one a frosted glass that blurs the view, the rough textured surface casting dim shadows and points of light.
On closer inspection, it is a protective cover, as if it were placed over a newly purchased item, and can be peeled away. I find the corner, drag the thin sheet away from the hidden surface, pulling it down, revealing a shiny mirror, another self looking back at me, appearing strangely animated, the lips slightly curled into a Mona Lisa smile as if amused, a twinkle in the eye, the scene behind a tropic wonder, the golden sun rising over a calm sea, palm trees standing like icons to a life of ease, the sound of waves gently, but eagerly, lapping the shore like a happy dog lovingly licking the face of its owner, the other me nodding at my own blossoming intuition as if to say, “You could live this life,” as if offering me a choice between this outer world, stormy, wet, and cold, or this inner world of untouched beauty. I want to step through the looking glass, find an island girl with a flower in her hair, walking together on the beach, composing poetry in the sand while she plays a ukulele and sings love songs to the sea.
To exit this world, to enter that other world, I must leave behind the one thing that anchors me to whatever world I inhabit: my body. I turn away, hearing the flushing water gurgling out from the drain pipe outside my window, looking around the room at the clutter of things, the unfinished tasks, the interrupted projects, the tray of papers begging to be processed, my stomach aching, feeling bloated and gassy, even though I am on day 13 of a fast with no food intake to explain it, feeling the seductive pull of that other world, so I turn back and he is gone, the beach, the palm trees, the waves, all gone. I see through the glass, mottled with tiny, silvered raindrops, each a universe unfolding, against the backdrop of wet streets, greyed sky, and gloomy weather, my intuition rising like the hidden sun behind the cloudy skies, as if to say, “This world, even its grey, gloomy days, is where you live.” And all of it, stormy weather and sunny skies, cold winters and hot summers, tropic beaches and desert flats, all of it lives in me.
From Daily Intent for January 7, 2017. I write my daily intent every day, imagining how I might like the day to go and how I might think, feel, or experience it, especially at day's end. These entries are sometimes metaphoric and sometimes practical, depending on my whim of the moment. Click the tag below for more entries extracted from Daily Intent writing. You can also read poems extracted from my Poetry Blog Daily Intent as well.
