Burn down the filing system
I went for a walk today and there was moist gulf breeze blowing in our unseasonably warm March. As I began my mind started the inevitably filing action that happens when you move away from the rote action of doing – it begins like this, a dream recalled in fragments, a conversation that remains forever unfinished, a thought still trying to be articulated, an old hurt, a sweet memory – as all of this information began pouring into my consciousness I decided to shut down the filing system and simply be.
I watched the ducks scuttle across old Bayou Metairie, I listen to the crow cawing in the large oak tree, I heard the scuffle of squirrels scurrying up the cypress trees that are already green with new growth. I noticed ducks paired up – the inevitably spring mating season beginning and I quietly dismissed any associations with my past mating rituals.
I walked, and I tried not to think but instead to be. What if, I couldn’t help but ask myself, life is just this, just being, a sentient being, and that all the thinking in the world is what’s wrong with it? But what about writers, what would they write if they didn’t process thoughts? Where would books come from? And then I shut it down again and simply walked.
To push thoughts out of your mind and try to remain in a state of grace, of being, is not for pussies. You have to be willing to accept that everything you have done in the past is wrong headed. I watched a neighbor run by, she always goes for very long runs, and you can tell by how lithe her body is (or maybe not, I thought, as I used to run often and long, and never was this voluptuous body considered lithe), but then I remembered not to think anymore.
And so I breathed. I thought to myself that perhaps I’m in some animal state – just being, breathing, walking, and that thinking causes pain, causes anxiety, causes confusion. There is no confusion in simply walking, breathing, and being.
I passed Goldfish Island again and thought I am a goldfish swimming in a pond and I can either wag my gold tail and shine or fear getting eaten by a shark.