Monday 24 January 2011

tilling the soul

'Think of your breed; for brutish ignorance
Your mettle was not made; you were made men,
To follow after knowledge and excellence'

- Dante 'The Divine Comedy'

I am in turmoil; immemorial days pass me by, so long in their passing and so quickly forgotten as they hold little or no value. Each day follows the next and as I try to grapple for some meaning some way to make it seem worth while I instead become more lost and exhausted. I am an intelligent being but my own mind is slowly poisoning me and I fear that no resolution is to be found. The future, the past, everything is grey and the 'here and now' is only bearable as it lasts for but a moment at a time. Surely this pain in my soul cannot last forever? Surely there must be a time when there is a Spring in my life, sunshine pouring down on little old me, beauty that lasts in my memory and fills my heart, not just my portfolio of photographs.

A friend last night told me I needed to talk, to not hold in these feelings, I don't know what good it will do as I have been told that talking therapy is not right for me; trying to find the answers is futile. In fact I now try to live with the mind set that I seek not to understand, but Man is not made like that is He? We are made to search for knowledge and meaning - to strive for excellence. Well my reader - I am failing, I am failing in the most glorious way - a major fireworks display of inadequacy for all to see.

I write this not for pity, but for catharsis... no one need comment - I just want need to be real, not hide behind the fact that none of you can see me on a daily basis - that the Carrie you 'know' is the Carrie that is a fighter and how wants to connect with her fellow man, but not face to face - I couldn't bare to have you look at me.

Strength is elusive, I can only hope that it will come with the daffodils, that the warmth of the Sun and the longer nights will trigger something deep in my primordial psyche and I shall raise like a Phoenix, if but for a season. I wish I could believe that. For now I leave you and simply look about me in this new study that Andrew and I have created for me to feel safe.

I have photos of his work on the garden to share. I shall return later and we can all forget about this post, but for now, if you have 'listened' - thank you. I needed to cry but I can't, so instead I write.

8 comments:

  1. and i thank you for now I am crying xx

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  2. Hi Carrie

    Two things ...

    first - you are not failing to pursue knowledge and excellence. You are growing every day through allotmenteering, craft fairs, homemaking, caring for doggie, being a good wife, etc. Soul-searching and therapy and finding a deep existential meaning to life are no the only way to pursue the knowledge and excellence Dante was talking about!

    second - I seem to remember a psychotherapy research paper that said that there is a good time for psychotherapy and talking generally (typically when there is a problem that has not been fully thought through/ explored/ put into words and you need to reformulate it) and a bad time for psychotherapy and talking (when the problem has been talked and reformulated to death and you are going round in circles not moving forward). This is 'rumination' and just stirs up upset and worry without actually resulting in progress. I'm guessing this is why your psychologist/ psychiatrist told you to leave the talking therapy aside for now. It is nothing to feel bad about - it is a bit like in nature (farmers leaving fields lying fallow because they can't be constantly ploughed!)

    Sorry I didn't mean to type that much. You will be bored to death by my ramblings by now! Take it easy, Lauran x

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  3. Because I haven't babbled on quite long enough yet ;) ..... Here is a quotation I was trying to remember earlier! Lx

    "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer". ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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  4. 'live along some distant day into the answer' I could walk that road 'with' you. Your garden is glowing. I love to watch it unfolding, step by step.

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  5. Carrie. Spring will spring,I promise.
    Much love
    x

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