She'd Fly Through the Air With the Greatest of Ease...or the Opposite of Ease

Today, a friend mentioned that it sounds like I am engulfed in the “Fires of Hell.”

And, honestly, my reaction was a loud hoot, which means I might be further gone than I had realized.

But...no...seriously - I laugh to keep from crying.  You have to admit – I have had a rather twisted take on “stuff” lately.  I mean, I suppose most of it is totally normal for a homeschooling mom of five...who just had a baby...and is therefore on a hormonal rollercoaster...and whose husband is gone 75% of the month....  

Oh...for me...really?  

Wait...wait...can I just add one more thing:  we are in the doldrums of summer.  This means, not as much daily contact with other moms on fire...or in fire.

So.  Anyways.  I was thinking about this “fires of hell” observation...after I got my vile snickering under control, and after I looked under my chair to see if that was a goblin that just brushed up against my stubbly ankle (a cat – phew)...no, but, honestly, after I thought about it a bit, I thought, 

“There IS something going on here.”

I have to back up a bit to explain:

OK.  Back in grad school, I had an outstanding professor who taught the Philosophy of Adult Education.  I am not going to state his name because I have changed his ideas slightly to accommodate my own opinions.  (Sorry.  I have trouble with authority – I always have to do it my way.)  But, essentially, his deal was “We never stop learning.” 

Suck ups

That assertion didn’t matter much to me at that point in time because I was in grad school, unmistakably entrenched in learning, and I was actually looking forward to the END of learning.  I was starting to hate knowledge.  So, the promise of more of it was something I was eager to dismiss.  But, this class did hand to me some everlasting images...ideas that were married to visuals that you could whip out later in life and say, “Ohhhh...yes...I see it....I get it now.”

One of those images was a trapeze act.

Learning happens in a trapeze act.  And, we are not talking about academic learning.  We are talking about life lessons.  You are sometimes holding firm to the bar.  Then, you let go, and you go flying into space...looking to grab onto another bar.  These are the different phases of life.  The bar represents when you are firmly parked inside of ideas that you hold dear and actions that demonstrate your ideas.  The space in between the bar is sketchy.  You get sick of a bar.  You outgrow that trapeze.  You might not even make a conscious decision to let go of it...you just kinda, gradually, slip from it.  Next thing you know, you are in space...nothing underfoot...nothing to hold onto....you are flying...where is that $&#$ next trapeze? 

Lately, change has come over me.  For one, I can see myself more clearly, which is not as pleasant an experience as you might imagine it to be (throat clear).  Also, I can see others more clearly, which is not as pleasant an experience as you might imagine it to be (I am not making eye contact with anyone right now).

What happens when you can see people, to include yourself, in a new way?

Well, for one, you don’t even know how to speak.

Seriously.  You get near people, and the old you starts to blather on, and the new, more astute you moans inside your head, “You’re DOING IT again,” and then the talking-you stops talking, and your head twitches to the side like a bee is buzzing your ear, and your eyes google back and forth a bit, and someone in your circle is the first to look away from you and interjects an awkward segue to a new fallback subject...and then everyone looks at that person...but because you are such an awkward weirdo they are totally obsessed with whatever it is you are doing now, so they are now stealing looks at you, which creates this whole strange dynamic of you sitting by yourself and everyone talking to each other with their head facing the person to whom they are talking but their eyeballs are totally on you.  

In the end, you just stop doing anything at all...you even put down your fork...or your drink....or your child - you just plop that child right down on the ground at your feet, and you sit there 

and reflect

cuz that is what you are good at these days...

catatonic reflection.

You sit in groups of people and think about the people.

You try to talk.  But, you cannot chat the way you once did...all happy-go-lucky and untroubled.  Your ideas are changing.  Your actions are going to change.

What’s more - you stare now, which makes you creepy and unapproachable.

What I am saying is this:  I have slipped from the bar, and I don’t mean the corner tavern.

I was firmly on a trapeze – the same, familiar, this-is-what-I-stand-for trapeze - for about 15 years.

I slipped off.

Oops.

Ouch.

Not “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

So, from afar, this might look like I am engulfed in the fires of hell.  For all I know, that is exactly what is beneath me as I flutter through the air, rummaging around for a trapeze, and maybe I am a lot closer to those flames than I realize.  It is best not to look down, you know.

But, I have my eyes peeled for that next trapeze, and it going to be a beaut...but, I have a feeling...I don't actually get to select it...I have a feeling it is flung at me, and I grab it.

And, if you look more closely at me...closer...closer...

I have five little people clinging to my floppy body as I am jerking through the air with my eyes all bugged out...

well, to be fair, one of them is trying to jump off and go to her own trapeze, but I am restraining her.