Monday, July 18, 2016

On a Rushing, Throbbing Heart

The rain pelts my windshield. I watch the wiper blades, one slightly askew from the winter ice -- a subtle peek into the manipulation made possible by frigid cold; I watch the wiper blades and wonder what might happen if they swooshed so fast they unhinged off my car. My eyes try to keep time with the rhythm - wa-WOMP, wa-WOMP, wa-WOMP.

I wonder if that's what my heart sounds like from the inside out.

The looming light finally evolves from red to green and I take the left turn cautiously; rain makes my fingers tremble over the steering wheel. I think I might live in perpetual fear that, like my life oft does, the car will hydroplane in an intersection of where I'm coming from and where I've yet to grasp.

The left turn is made and a family of geese totter slowly, carefully across the street. I feel impatience well within me; I am already late. Sleep, like it so regularly does now,  evaded me last night. I slip hard into slumber and then the deafening quiet wakes me -- beckons me to think about those things I so desperately want to avoid.

The damp, inky night siren-cries at me to share with her the secrets lining my clavicle, and when I refuse, the temptress leaves me wide-eyed and chasing rest.

So I am late to work, having just made a left turn, and am accosted by having to wait on a family of geese leisurely making their way across the road.

They do not rush themselves - even when idiotic humans around them beep their horns to rush their travel. I shake my head and the windshield wipers provide monotonous sound track music for the journey.

wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP.

These geese - they are not bothered by being creatures who prolong a commute. They will not hold guilt over needing time to get where they need to be.

wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP.

It occurs to me the many instances in which I truly do need to rest, to take leisure, to attempt to sedate the manic within.

The geese waddle, treading lightly, in the midst of the downpour, and I feel every fiber within me wanting to rush.

I hasten towards the horizon of each day, convinced tomorrow must be the day something will finally happen that's needed to happen all this time. I charge into the setting sun, wholly certain taking time, diligent and intentional, will gain me naught.

wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP.

The geese family finally reaches their terminus and I step lightly onto the gas, turning up the speed of the skewed windshield wipers. The rain assails my windshield and I detect my pulse picking up rhythm.

What is it about the deceleration of a life that makes me queasy to the point of inhabiting the skin of a flight risk?

wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP.

I am a flight risk.

The slowing down recently has shown me this. All the rushing around and desperately gnawing at skin, all the attempts at saying what I want and wanting what I feel, it's succeeded in captivating me so effortlessly that I am missing entire pieces of myself.

I am absent in the interview process over the beating organ beneath my clothing.

wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP.

The geese family, long gone by the time I end my day and traverse the drive home, continues to pulse just beneath the surface of my thoughts. Slow and steady. Prolonged in travel, unhurried, leisurely in pace, they get where needs going on time and safely -- they do not exist in the propensity to rush head-first into calamity.

wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP. wa-WOMP.

My hearts thrums evenly on the drive home; no rain to blitz my windshield, no family of geese unabashedly requiring my anticipation in their arrival to the destination.
I am met, in the afternoon sun, with roads unwinding, imploring for acceleration.

And I . . . I am petitioning for a slow down.