My women’s group went on a retreat together last weekend. We rented a big house right on the water and it was sublime. Seals and sea birds and total peace; taking the time to remember how to breathe…
The contrast with the way things have been for me lately was striking. I have been so busy - driven, really - for what seems like several weeks now. Stopping for a moment, I ask myself, “What’s going on?” What’s behind this panic, the sense that I will never catch up to myself or have enough time to do what’s needed or what’s being demanded of me?
I was in a panic to get to our retreat on time, racing through the packing and straightening up, online, multi-tasking through the necessary conference calls, valiantly trying to address the ever growing pile of emails pressing their way upwards to my attention … as fast as I respond to one, another comes in to take its place. I am so out of it by the time I leave that I get on the freeway instead of going to CostCo for gas and have to turn around. Then the traffic is so bad on my usual exit that I take an unfamiliar route, missing the right turnoff and end up taking the loooong road along the ocean. It’s so long, so twisty, and just so freaking magnificently beautiful that I’m forced to slow down and surrender to the fact that I will be “late”, but I still can’t help but imagine “There won’t be any room for my car”, and “All that will be left is the terrible bed in the tiny room.”
Anyway, I’m starting to relax just a little – after all this is a retreat – cruising along this glorious road with a CD playing and I suddenly zero in on the lyrics Bonnie Raitt is singing in that minute: “I see my folks, theyre getting old, I watch their bodies change... I know they see the same in me, and it makes us both feel strange... No matter how you tell yourself, its what we all go through... Those eyes are pretty hard to take when they're staring back at you. Scared, scared you'll run out of time... When did the choices get so hard? With so much more at stake. Life gets mighty precious when theres less of it to waste. Hummmm...scared she'll run out of time. She’s scared, scared to run out of time.”
Truthfully, this moment happened earlier – I was just leaving the house – totally monkey-mind - concerned about one day not being enough time for a real break, and on a deeper level extremely worried about this rushing and perennial lack of time. I know that the key to my health and creativity is having quiet time, at least some time where there is nothing that has to be done. I know that when I am rushed and stressed I snap at people and can’t open my heart or remember that love is all there is. My sense of possibility is shut off and I’m unable to experience any emergent anything. Every day is fully taken up with the challenge of survival.
Right in the middle of that total overwhelm I heard that snippet of lyric “scared to run out of time” and it immediately gave me a jolt –could that fear of aging be at least part of what’s fueling this whirlwind dance with time that’s been working me so hard lately?! The jolt was so strong that of course the answer must be yes… all these things I still want to do in this lifetime, and the irony is I’m too busy to do them.
Another thing that occurred to me later was that this flash of awareness came when I was absolutely crazed, feeling empty and frightened that I would never again experience my primal creative urge. So maybe I am not in control of the ebb and flow of these things after all. Maybe I will still receive insights and creative flashes when I need them, perhaps they are my birthright, no matter what I do or don’t do.
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