EXCERPT: At its root was a lump, and from there a bough that split in two, and from there thick branches that split again into branches, and then thin twigs that continued to split and course a path towards the light.
* * * * *
The Sabbath.
My back is sore. My bones are starting to stiffen. I’m missing my circuit-training classes and the swimming pool.
I miss not being able to take ‘the boy’ to the beach, or to visit his friends and drink tea with their mothers. I miss hugs. I miss giving workmates a cheeky dig on the arm. I miss handshakes. I miss full Irish breakfasts.
I really like the peace and quiet though.
* * * * *
I keep having these strange experiences, especially as I lay in bed; it can happen anywhere though. I can instigate them consciously if I allow myself. They are getting harder to suppress so I roll with them, because – why not? I can’t really describe them. Out-of-body only it’s not. More like into-body. An awareness of the consciousness without a name, a nation, an education or memory. The thing that peers out through the eyes and knows not what it is. The second greatest mystery of creation.
No one has an answer they can stand over satisfactorily, although they fight to the death over their claims. It is all a bit bizarre really – the absurdity of life – accident of chaos or otherwise. Making war and contributing to Gross Domestic Product is probably not the best use of such a gift.
* * * * *
I was gardening on Friday. I dug out a bush. At its root was a lump, and from there a bough that split in two, and from there thick branches that split again into branches, and then thin twigs that continued to split and course a path towards the light.
It was an image that came to mind this morning as I transitioned from sleep into a state of awakening. Is that like the human race, I wondered as I considered pulling back the duvet and allowing myself to drift? Are we all just branches of the one great lump, splitting through time into endless directions?
I often think about things like that. I can’t help it. It’s just the direction my little green twig took.
I didn’t design my hardware. I didn’t arrange it so my mother would ride my father ad infinitum back to the first horny amoeba, picking up all the genetic mutations along the way.
Or maybe I did? But that’s for the advanced level psychonauts…
* * * * *
I try to suppress such intangibles. What use are they? School never taught us anything about them, so they could not have been that important. I was probably just odd.
It’s not like I can ask the bank manager for a loan by staking an ethereal claim to a slice of creation. The financiers are not interested in spirit. They want flesh and muscle to build the things that make them rich.
I tried to please them. I have scars to prove it, but they tanked the economy and unashamedly asked for more of our sweat. I never managed to qualify for a 25-year plan to own a piece of a planet they didn’t make. Who sold the first piece of land anyway? He must have been a thief.
* * * * *
My back is sore and my bones have stiffened. My brain has got set in its ways. I will never again be able to use my body to shift tonnes of plaster, concrete and stone like I did in Tiger years. I could pick strawberries and tend the land. I could see out my days doing that, if it paid the rent so ‘the boy’ has a bed to sleep in. It doesn’t, so I can’t.
High functioning autism. Low functioning servitude.
I have the fire brigade for now and I’ll practice writing a bit.
What has this to do with Covid? Simple: If we can’t explore outside, are we not forced to look inwards? Are others doing the same? What do they find? Anyone out there thinking similar things, or am I just an oddball who needs a short vacation in Our Ladies?
Great Mystery,
Inwards or out,
Hear me,
Guide my steps.
