I wonder if you've ever done it? Waded for ages?
There's a place I like to go where you can walk in water up to your shins - for kilometres at a time. The water is not flowing; it's not stagnant, simply calm. When you start out its delightful, fun, interesting, and you get to see and feel unusual things. But it's also slow going; the water drags at you and makes you tired - we are not designed to be waders. The water forces you to adopt a peculiar gait not suited to any body as you quickly learn there is only one way to sensibly move. On dry land you can with ease choose to shamble, shuffle, jump, run and stride. But when wading all you can do is push one leg against the resistance, and then drag the other foot forwards, and repeat. If you go too fast it gets messy. If you exert yourself to leap and bound and make a big splash, well that's fun for a while, but quickly ends up with everyone nearby getting wet and cold. Even simply walking, if you get too close to others you will most likely make their clothes damp from all the splashes you make, and in turn get wet yourself. Sometimes you stand on things unseen that uncomfortably go squish between your toes. But mostly its a steady and constrained push with the legs, dragging one foot after the next. I'm tired of wading. It seems that for the last few years all I've been doing is wading in church. Pushing one foot ahead, dragging the other forwards, calling out to each other in stylized chit-chat about how nice everything is. Slowly moving through still and unchanging water that lies placidly stretched to the horizon. I feel tired and splashed with sticky, salty spray. So long as I choose to settle for the sedate, so long as I don't try and run, and so as long as we don't get too close to each other, then everything is calm and relaxed (if that's what you like) as we wade our separated paths toward nowhere in particular, slowly. I want to get out of this pool and onto the hard sand. There are a lot of people over there who seem very interesting, and their conversations are full of lively debates about big things that matter. They run and bump and jump and sometimes fall, but soon pick themselves up, brush off the sand, and start again. I want to join them as they dash ahead, pausing occasionally to breath deeply and renew their strength, and then start again. Theirs is not a tiredness of never-ending wading, but a breathlessness of running races. Some waders nearby say to me "But the dry sand is hard and the pace is fast. We like your company, so stay with us and enjoy the familiar comfort of warm water." I wonder if I need to get onto dry land before I drown.
1 Comment
|
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
|