I feel a little like I've delegated responsibility for my life. I've put career decisions on auto-pilot, handed off housing decisions to a friend, left my life decisions in the hands of another friend or two.
I've started walking slower, a little behind whomever I'm with, so as to let them choose the direction. Strange as it sounds, I'm a little quieter, and staying out of conversations, some.
That last bit's not entirely true. I still find myself fighting for attention, but I guess I'm just no longer as bothered when I don't get it.
I mean, basically I'm drifting. I suspect that's why I'm writing again, a little. That microscopic rage for order lets me bob aimlessly on a larger scale.
The image I keep getting is that I'm looking at the world through the wrong end of a telescope, so everything looks tiny and far away, while waves dash my boat this way and that.
Here's a Sir Thomas Wyatt poem. It's not one of my favorite-favorites, but I like the pun in the third line: "mine enemy, alas/ That is my lord..." sounds exactly like "mine enemy, a lass/ That is my lord." I think the sexual imagery continues, through the poem, but I'm sure of the "alas." Writing on this one in Molly Murray's class ages ago made me feel a little ingenious, which is one of the feelings I like so much about writing.
My galley charged with forgetfulness
Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass
'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine enemy, alas
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;
And every oar a thought in readiness
As though that death were light in such a case.
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace
Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness.
A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain
Hath done the wearied cords great hindrance,
Wreathed with error and eke with ignorance.
The stars be hid that led me to this pain
Drowned is reason that should me comfort
And I remain despairing of the port.
