Sometimes I think my life is like a mud river. Murky and brown and dingy and slow moving and lacking any kind of clarity. The more the mud is stirred up, the denser the flow, the slower it moves and the more confusion arises. The ideal is to let the river settle,
(more) not to agitate, not to stirr, but to let the particles swirl and eventually settle at the bottom of the river bed. This takes time, time and patience, that I don't have time for. Sometimes the murkiness does subside, enough to get a glimpse from the bottom of the bed to the surface. Fuzzy sunlight plays on the meniscus of the water, but as often as not, as soon as it clarifies a little, a thought or impulse, compulsion or terror clouds the surface again and I am back to the mud river. Is a baby born with a mud river? Or do they get a crystal clear stream bubbling fresh from the alpine mountains? The water so clear and cool and refreshing that you can cup it and drink it from your hands. Is this what life gives you, each day, each year more murky stirring whirling and twisting to sully the stream until you are left with a soup of brown. To sit and watch, to simply breathe, to be. Simply be with the river. To be kind to it, to be patient with it, like you would be patient with a child. Not to poke, to stir to agitate, but to wait, to observe the sediments slowly falling into place. Maybe, maybe eventually getting to a clarity that is manageable. That is the hope, the ideal but until then, I strive for it, stirring up the mud and poking at the river bed-clouding it.(less)
