Scenes from an Unsettled Mind

I dream in vivid colors and bold action, multiple vignettes that fade on waking. Left behind are bits and snatches, impressions of the endless parade through my mind.

This morning, left behind was a sense of frustration. Of pushing and pulling, cajoling, trying, vying. Doing what was in front of me to do, only to find I’d made the wrong choice. Wrong place, wrong time. Wrong decision, wrong action. Wrong world, wrong life.

Rising did nothing to quiet the frustration, bringing it forward in to my morning.

The weather outside matches my mood, dark gray clouds raining drops all around. Scooping green tea leaves in to a strainer, I immerse them in the mug I bought last year in Solana Beach where I’d run away to escape from my perplexing life.

So much has changed since then, I live in a different home on the opposite coast, have a different partner, different car. Yet, nothing essential has changed.

My life has been a marathon; running to, running from, running in place.

There are times when I feel I’m living out an episode of The Twilight Zone. When, in the quiet, still places of my mind, I have a sense of the world and it’s a lonely, frightful place, not at all what I’ve been trained (or want) to believe.

I look out the window and the dark clouds and rain have been scuttled by a brisk, cold wind from the south. It’s now sunny, with blue skies, but still unsettled; a perfect match for my insides.

What lies before me is an office to create, a partner to consult, paint colors to decide, a sign-maker to rouse, paperwork to fill out, licenses to obtain, insurance to buy, patients to find. Yet, here I sit, in the Twilight Zone, feeling like a hamster on a wheel and that none of that matters.

In these times, my mind strays, uninvited, to thoughts of Armageddon and warnings of 2012. To visions I’ve had of being a mighty warrior, wielding the sword of truth and might. Of being, not the peacemaker as I’ve been most of my life, but one on the frontline of chaos and terror.

Why so melancholy? It’s the dreams. And the visions. They haunt me, making it increasingly harder to put one foot in front of the other. How must Columbus have felt, knowing in his heart that the world was round? Or Lincoln, standing on the precipice of a world gone mad?

My internet is down. Must be the wind. Next door a dog bays, reminding me of the beagle we’d found and taken in. Yesterday, on the way to Valentine’s brunch, we saw a sign declaring ‘Lost Beagle’, and called. Her owners came in the afternoon and, while Bugsy, my cat, is happy, there is a small hole in my heart.

Speaking of Bugsy, he just fell off the table. He was lying here, soaking up the warmth of the sun, then stretched, lazily, a little too far, and fell off. I scrambled out of my chair and grabbed him up, holding him gently in a loving embrace. He purred, my eyes watered, and I remembered, once again: this is all that matters.

Love.

Whether life goes on for days, weeks or years, for minutes or for eons, love is the glue that binds us to it. Love is the spark that powers our hearts, and holds us together to live one more day and to dream one more night.

Have you had similar visions? Dreams? Knowings? Do you wake up in the morning unsettled? Do you cling to love, as I?