Don’t we ask ourselves this?
Even those of us that embrace stream of consciousness writing?
Yes, stream of consciousness writing can mean different things to many people, but I’m not sure I ever knew that until this moment.
I never took the time to think that stream of consciousness, as pure as I believed it to be, save correcting typographical errors, was in fact subject to many filters.
You may have filters that I don’t that edit less or more.
Does that make your writing any less pure?
I have spent much time the last few months, but more so, the last few days, enveloped in silence within sound.
Silence within sound? What kind of message is that?
Silence within sound, in this moment, to me, means, not feeling the need to infuse the moment with words.
I became lost within a group of people these last few days.
Simple communication gone awry, left on a corner in a remote town, I began to walk. But you see, I was not “left” by these people around me, we just used our words differently, yes, the same string of words. They watched me walk to a store, and when asking if I wanted a ride, I said, no, I like to walk. So when I came out and could not see them, I walked, assuming they thought my words, I like to walk, meant I would walk…and walk…all the way back to the hotel.
So I did, I walked.
They found me, a block from the hotel, flabbergasted and worried, thinking they had lost me.
I reflect now on that walk, how some blocks looked longer than others, but how as I walked, there was nothing pressing on me, you see, my Blackberry had an unfortunate encounter with a toddler and a garden hose weeks ago, and I still have not replaced it. Unheard of in my day to day profession, but, I wanted it to happen, I think now, I willed that garden hose to to hit my Blackberry.
I am now listening to Pandora, having searched for Diana Krall, and I did indeed get one selection, but what came next?
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.
I am still the child that walks alone, singing to the clouds and clicking my heels, as I told RubyShooz moments ago….serendipity? or mere chance?
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,
there’s a land that I heard of….
Well, on this walk, the walk of the lost, I heard this song, and I heard God, and I said, ok, so this is what it is to be connected to the eternal, to be without worry, this is it, isn’t it?
Now any one else seeing it, may have seen a mad woman dressed in black with bottles of wine in brown bags wondering what had gone wrong in the world.
Yet, the crazy thing is…everything had gone right.
I was where I was.
And that was ok.
I also provided endless laughs for the crowd over the next several days…the best version, how does a woman get lost in a liquor store within only three aisles?
I smile.
I have not stopped.
At the same time, I hear a litany playing in the back of my mind, another childhood memory:
“Lamb of God,
You take away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.”
Over and over.
I veered today out of the way of a shadow on the road, but it was the shadow of a chipmunk, do you know how small the shadow of a chipmunk is on a country road where you are permitted to go fifty miles an hour?
But I saw it, and no, I didn’t hit the chipmunk. Thank God.
So, why do we write or not write here?
I have no clue.
All I know, is I did it my way this time.
