Want.

There seems to be a cliff dropping down to a gorge so deep it’s impossible to know how deep between reality and another reality that seems to be on the other side of it. And, in this time of coronavirus, my side of the gorge is shifting backwards, not forwards. It becomes particularly enticing to make a running leap despite knowing that there is no way the laws of physics would allow me to safely land on the other side.

Maybe it’s time to leap. I’m getting older by the second and making so little progress. I asked earlier if progress is really productive and yet I want to keep moving in some direction, ideally forward. I guess it’s just as a woman of great dreams my heart is saddened by moving away from the edge of the cliff and resolving never to even consider leaping again. To avoid falling, certainly, to the victim of my wild imagination, my constant hunger for something greater than or other than this side.

I should have leapt sooner. If I fell, I’d have fallen, but now it’s too late to try. Life is no longer about chasing that reality across the chasm it’s about sinking into routine and silence and hoping to save for the down payment on a house you will be outbid on anyway so why bother?

See, I’m an escape artist. A master of disguise so masterful I don’t even recognize myself when I look in the mirror anymore. So it goes. I long to be reminded of who I am or once was, but don’t we all. For all the years of our youth we spent preparing to become ourselves in adulthood the cruel joke is that we actually were ourselves all along and ran out of time to pursue whatever it is we really wanted. So instead we are stuck, toes tight around the edge of our cliff and looking out into what is now all but an impossible leap to the other side which we can’t see anyway.

That doesn’t keep me from imagining what is feels like to be there, rolling in fresh soil, burying my toes deep, curled against the softness of how I assume it all might be, that other maybe, a thousand million miles away, instead of the actual exactly, the here and now and tomorrow that can be easily estimated and played out well in advance. At some point the desire for suspense and surprise becomes too strong. At some point she turns towards her demise and starts to sprint ahead towards that impossible leap.