When a starfish grows a new arm, does it secretly want to reject it? Does it feel uncomfortable with this new thing attached?
I wonder if it glances down it's spiny side, somehow, or chances a peak at its reflection in a nearby pool. It could look at this small arm, not fully, grown in yet, and say,
"Certainly that is not me, too? That must be something foreign. It's unattractive and puny next to the other four. It doesn't belong here." And continue to cling to the same old grey rock, hugging the different contours and edges, maybe watching the other creatures creep past.
I wondered about this at work yesterday. I stood cutting tart shells; I rolled out the beige dough, pressed down on the long rolling pin with my shoulders, and sprinkled flour over it. I like to avoid sticky fingers at work when I can.
I like to think that some decisions I made are not part of me, and those desires spilled out of my work over the pastry tarts, a sort of frustration that for some reason, made me think of starfish. It came out in pursed lips over the lumps in the dough, or the moments when I would break with a sigh and stare - for a moment - at the white bumpy walls of the kitchen, or the empty glass tables of the cafe.
I'm not comfortable with those decisions. I look back on 2008, on my journal entries and what my memory patches together, and I feel anxiety. I wrestle with events and fight to push them out; I look into the memory mirror and say,
"No. That's not part of me. It needs to go. It's unattractive, and it doesn't match the other parts of my life. It doesn't belong here."
And again,
"it needs to go."
It won't leave, though. It never will.
Adam drove me home from work - we're two lucky souls, working shifts until 1AM. I turned to him and felt some emotions welling up behind my eyes. He took the longer route, the one that worked from the streetlights of Woodward (the road of cars at all hours) to the narrow back streets of Adams Road that's really the name of the road) and Elm Street.
The itchiness behind my eyes was the well-behaved sort; the kind that keeps away until we're extraordinariliy tired and vulnerable. It had been a long day, one that constitutes both situations. I had to tell him, though, not just show the battle in body language and expression.
It's in my nature to vocalize or pen out what I'm thinking. It makes it more concrete to me, somehow, more fully thought out.
"I think that maybe my biggest issue with all these things" - all the bad decisions and repercussions - "is that I am not comfortable with admitting they are part of me now. They happened. They will always be in the back of my mind. But maybe I'm just aggravating the situation by constantly trying to expel them, when they can't be taken out.
"It's like having a parasite latch onto you without noticing; by the time you notice, it's become part of you, but you keep trying to separate it, and all it does is create an irritation around the area. Maybe that's what's wrong with me; I need to stop fighting these things and just accept them as always there, from then to now and in the future. I need to become comfortable with them being here."
He nodded, and we talked about more things like we always do after long shifts on our feet; why does scurrying around kitchens and cafes open my mouth into a flapping trap of words?
But there were more to the tart shells.
It happened when I began cutting them; a less physical task where I used a round circle cutter and quickly make 34 or so circles to go in their respective, black molds. I mulled it over more when I began taking the time to thumb the dough into the round ridges, pressing them into the edges and trimming the extra flab off the top. My job was to make them fit.
What if the starfish knew a secret? What if they never look in the first place; maybe they move alongside reflections without a second glance, trusting that whatever happens to them simply happens, however it changes their structure will be for the betterment of themselves.
Or maybe they do chance a glance, but simply take in the new scene of themselves without unnecessary qualms.
They still exist after how many thousands of years? The tides still go in and go out, people still run up and down the sands, kids still wiggle their toes gleefully or curiously in the mucky shore.
Maybe they know inherently - like all of nature seems to accept - that they have no control over this new part of them developing, and they simply need to wait for the discomfort to pass. Embrace it. Everything else continues just fine; someone has it under control, so just accept that it's there for a reason.
A starfish, then, has more faith in its single arm than I do in my entire body - while cutting tart shells, at least.
I wonder if it glances down it's spiny side, somehow, or chances a peak at its reflection in a nearby pool. It could look at this small arm, not fully, grown in yet, and say,
"Certainly that is not me, too? That must be something foreign. It's unattractive and puny next to the other four. It doesn't belong here." And continue to cling to the same old grey rock, hugging the different contours and edges, maybe watching the other creatures creep past.
I wondered about this at work yesterday. I stood cutting tart shells; I rolled out the beige dough, pressed down on the long rolling pin with my shoulders, and sprinkled flour over it. I like to avoid sticky fingers at work when I can.
I like to think that some decisions I made are not part of me, and those desires spilled out of my work over the pastry tarts, a sort of frustration that for some reason, made me think of starfish. It came out in pursed lips over the lumps in the dough, or the moments when I would break with a sigh and stare - for a moment - at the white bumpy walls of the kitchen, or the empty glass tables of the cafe.
I'm not comfortable with those decisions. I look back on 2008, on my journal entries and what my memory patches together, and I feel anxiety. I wrestle with events and fight to push them out; I look into the memory mirror and say,
"No. That's not part of me. It needs to go. It's unattractive, and it doesn't match the other parts of my life. It doesn't belong here."
And again,
"it needs to go."
It won't leave, though. It never will.
Adam drove me home from work - we're two lucky souls, working shifts until 1AM. I turned to him and felt some emotions welling up behind my eyes. He took the longer route, the one that worked from the streetlights of Woodward (the road of cars at all hours) to the narrow back streets of Adams Road that's really the name of the road) and Elm Street.
The itchiness behind my eyes was the well-behaved sort; the kind that keeps away until we're extraordinariliy tired and vulnerable. It had been a long day, one that constitutes both situations. I had to tell him, though, not just show the battle in body language and expression.
It's in my nature to vocalize or pen out what I'm thinking. It makes it more concrete to me, somehow, more fully thought out.
"I think that maybe my biggest issue with all these things" - all the bad decisions and repercussions - "is that I am not comfortable with admitting they are part of me now. They happened. They will always be in the back of my mind. But maybe I'm just aggravating the situation by constantly trying to expel them, when they can't be taken out.
"It's like having a parasite latch onto you without noticing; by the time you notice, it's become part of you, but you keep trying to separate it, and all it does is create an irritation around the area. Maybe that's what's wrong with me; I need to stop fighting these things and just accept them as always there, from then to now and in the future. I need to become comfortable with them being here."
He nodded, and we talked about more things like we always do after long shifts on our feet; why does scurrying around kitchens and cafes open my mouth into a flapping trap of words?
But there were more to the tart shells.
It happened when I began cutting them; a less physical task where I used a round circle cutter and quickly make 34 or so circles to go in their respective, black molds. I mulled it over more when I began taking the time to thumb the dough into the round ridges, pressing them into the edges and trimming the extra flab off the top. My job was to make them fit.
What if the starfish knew a secret? What if they never look in the first place; maybe they move alongside reflections without a second glance, trusting that whatever happens to them simply happens, however it changes their structure will be for the betterment of themselves.
Or maybe they do chance a glance, but simply take in the new scene of themselves without unnecessary qualms.
They still exist after how many thousands of years? The tides still go in and go out, people still run up and down the sands, kids still wiggle their toes gleefully or curiously in the mucky shore.
Maybe they know inherently - like all of nature seems to accept - that they have no control over this new part of them developing, and they simply need to wait for the discomfort to pass. Embrace it. Everything else continues just fine; someone has it under control, so just accept that it's there for a reason.
A starfish, then, has more faith in its single arm than I do in my entire body - while cutting tart shells, at least.
The worst part for me is when I'm under some kind of discomfort in a relationship, or there's oodles of sticky tension, I wonder where I went wrong. And if I can figure out where I went wrong I can go back to the root and move it out of my life. But that's my aversion to conflict in my life. I'd rather pretend it's not there than to actually acknowledge "Hey! There's a new limb growing. Um, maybe I should do something about that."
ReplyDeleteI can sweep it under the carpet, ignore it, avoid it until one day as I'm sticking to a rock in the ocean I can say "Hm. An extra hand. How convenient!" and forget that there was ever an absence.
Fantastic continuation of the metaphor. You nailed the issue on the head, although for me it's less about avoiding conflict and more about controlling my life.
ReplyDeleteI want to know that every part of me is a good thing that I didn't mess up. It definitely becomes the worst after relationships that go sour.
I have trouble sweeping it under the carpet, though...I obsess over it until I think I have it rationalized away...preferably as a new category not quite as forbidding as the original.