Contrary to Previous Belief, I Am Not Cool
I am full of fire
It’s 7:01 AM as the rain begins to fall. The sky, a light hue of amber. The thunder, rolling. The sound is soft but strong, like a warning growl. I open my bedroom window to melt into the rumble. To become one with it. Think of all the people without shelter. And there are those with shelter, like neighbors with decades old homes, providing a hospice bed for the flimsy pines to land on. They don’t want to die alone, but they forget how fragile humans are. How we cling to possessions and materials. How we think we have ownership over anything. Watch the lightening dance, noting its distance. Observe the seductive lightening. How she both neutralizes and destroys; a force after my own heart!!
I never considered myself an anxious person. Which doesn’t mean I wasn’t one, just that I never considered it. Nor did anyone else. As a child, I would get myself ready for school while crying quietly to myself with stomach pains. No one could figure out what was wrong with me.
Routine feels like a prison so I try ritual. Neither satiate. Keep your structured discipline for I limit myself each day. Playing a small hand then waiting for the world to respond. Should I put on a costume? Pretend to be someone, like everyone else? Get on with it already?
Someone wrote to say, you seem like you don’t do anything you don’t want to do. and that’s refreshing. But this person hasn’t seen me go to the post office for the 3rd time this week, trying desperately to keep my cool. I am not cool! I am hot, full of fire, but contained at camp. With nowhere for the fire to go—it burns —> smolders —> goes out. His reality limits what he can feel…1
I try to consult the campers on what to do, but they only see me in relation to themselves. I beg them to release me from this small circle of bricks, but they refuse. They say it’s too dangerous; that I could start a devastating wildfire. That my force will build and spread and kill anything in my path.
This is why I love the rain. It doesn’t fear me. It embraces and soothes and cleanses my smoke. It could even kill me, if it wanted to. And I love a risky unknown.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet