enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Clarity en route

You guys are so kind.

Don't worry - on balance I am quite well! I know that my entries are sometimes misleading, but really I am very happy with the stage to which I have grown. I feel very, very solid. I'm puzzling out what I want to do in a mostly rational way. I'm probably the best I've ever been. I think I'm going to have a breakthrough, finally, and get going in life. I believe this. It's a good stage. The best part is that there are things that I've accepted and left behind. I've also forgiven myself for many things. It's very good. But having said all of this...I am always going to be seeking something more...

I am lucky.

What the thing is is that I am SO frustrated by the things that I can't quite work out.

I know that I must simply be patient, that I haven't done all of the work, that things will work out in time.

When I was a kid I was always frustrated and impatient. I wanted everything to be beautiful.

Many people would have actually called me patient, for a kid at least, as I would sit for nine hours, say, and *make* something beautiful myself.

But I was so heartbroken if I found out that my plans were changed, somehow. And I was always disappointed in people.

I wanted the world to be a better place and I couldn't figure out how to do it myself in most instances. So I would retreat to my bedroom and my books.

I've spent most of my life retreating to books or rooms or corners or tables. Or even an obliging set of pillows in a dim bedroom.

With a book, of course.

I'd like to stop being fed only by "safe" things, however, which is why I'm trying to puzzle out why I can't be *with* anyone.

It's quite frustrating.

I know that there's simply supposed to be some kind of a lesson in the whole M. thing, but I can't quite puzzle it out. Or maybe I can't quite tolerate not knowing what might come, what might leave.

So, anyhow. Yes, I am well.

I did eat very badly last night - chocolate and corn chips. But this was after having taken a wholesome lunch to work that I'd made the night before. I also drank lots of water and ate a few strawberries when I got home.

It is very true though that I need to eat consistently well and to eat vegetables at every meal. My digestive problems have been such that my eating system is rather touchy. I need to go to the clinic to get the appropriate tests, and I need to keep things...moving. :)

Do you know what the thing is that is DRIVING me crazy???

It's that I want to find a mission. I really do. I've wanted to have a mission for my entire life. It's how I function; it's how I find happiness.

I don't currently have a purpose.

On the surface I have the purpose of going to work and saving money. But the problem with this purpose is that it's a phoney. This is the thing that has crept up on me for my entire life. When I was doing my Ph.D. work and hating it, my mean supervisor DID at one point actually say something astute. Even though I was just as far along as anyone else in my cohort and was doing a more ambitious project, she said, "You could have been done this by now, but you have been doing other things."

It is true. I could have been done and out in half the time that I took before I DROPPED OUT. I would walk around Montreal. I would feed birds. I would explore book shops, I would ride around the island and run up and around the mountain. I was not single-minded.

This is because I didn't believe in what I was doing as the answer to my life. I was looking for something more satisfying, something that fitted both my corporeal and spiritual beings. It just wasn't where I was.

I had that scary thought yesterday at work. It was the exact same thought. It was that I can't keep up this pretense much longer. I'm sitting here trying to pretend that I am interested in this work, when I can only at most devote about 10% of my concentration to it. My mind is on every beautiful thing that could be waiting for me out there and which I

just

can't

find.

I think that that's why the book got me so upset yesterday. I went to the author's website yesterday and read her notes on writing.

They came close to how I want to feel about life. Only I don't think that writing is quite it for me.

I wish I felt the passion to write and only write. I once thought I'd make a good journalist. And maybe I would.

But I can't say that it is my all-consuming passion.

And the passion has to be the all-consuming passion.

The only thing in life that I could see as an attractive all-consuming passion for me would be to be an artist.

I don't know how on earth I would do it but I could see myself traveling to the ends of the earth and back again to sculpt something beautiful, to make it better.

I could see that.

I could see drawing and writing at the same time. I'd like to capture the true emotions of people on their faces in lines, dig out their essence.

But how could I do this? What would I do for money? And how do I get rid of the fear that I will fail, that prevents me from picking up my pencil?

I know, as Swimmmy says, that I need to figure out how to do things one by one, little bit by little bit, whilst still keeping up with my regular money job.

It's true. I must not be as independent as I was during my grad school days. I must read a tax book today.

You know, I told myself the honest truth when I was running the other day.

I've said over and over that I loved running. I think I've even said that running was a passion.

But really, I was broken when I was running. I was so desperately unhappy.

I ran because running transported me. Whether it was the endorphins or the fact that I could *win*, beat something, beat myself into submission...it was an escape. This was particularly true when I was very fit.

But did I look forward to my runs? Well, not really. I only looked forward to the ones that involved running in the silent park after dark, alone. I didn't want people to see me - I wanted to hear my breathing, feel my heart beat. I used to say that it was meditation, and now I realize that that was exactly what it was. I was aching, striving for meditation. It was a silent, quiet place into which I could retreat. But I hated the obsession of the sport. The competition. I'll tell you a secret: I hate to compete. I'm not at all competitive. I don't have a competitive bone in my body. The problem is that people mistook self-flagellation for competitiveness...

So WOW! that was a babble.

But now we know what I need to do.

I need to figure out how not to waver, how to pursue the course, and tow the line.

And always support that cause with lots and lots and lots of vegetables. I wish I could have my own garden.

A little bit of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When I was a little girl I painted this out in caligraphy and with a little water colour bower of roses:

The House Of Clouds


I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud---
I build it bright to see,---
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,---
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and glimmering;
With a sunbeam hid in each,
And a smell of spring.

Build the entrance high and proud,
Darkening and then brightening,---
If a riven thunder-cloud,
Veined by the lightning.
Use one with an iris-stain,
For the door within;
Turning to a sound like rain,
As I enter in.

Build a spacious hall thereby:
Boldly, never fearing.
Use the blue place of the sky,
Which the wind is clearing;
Branched with corridors sublime,
Flecked with winding stairs---
Such as children wish to climb,
Following their own prayers.

In the mutest of the house,
I will have my chamber:
Silence at the door shall use
Evening's light of amber,
Solemnising every mood,
Softening in degree,---
Turning sadness into good,
As I turn the key.

Be my chamber tapestried
With the showers of summer,
Close, but soundless,---glorified
When the sunbeams come here;
Wandering harpers, harping on
Waters stringed for such,---
Drawing colours, for a tune,
With a vibrant touch.

Bring a shadow green and still
From the chestnut forest,
Bring a purple from the hill,
When the heat is sorest;
Spread them out from wall to wall,
Carpet-wove around,---
Whereupon the foot shall fall
In light instead of sound.

Bring the fantasque cloudlets home
From the noontide zenith
Ranged, for sculptures, round the room,---
Named as Fancy weeneth:
Some be Junos, without eyes;
Naiads, without sources
Some be birds of paradise,---
Some, Olympian horses.

Bring the dews the birds shake off,
Waking in the hedges,---
Those too, perfumed for a proof,
From the lilies' edges:
From our England's field and moor,
Bring them calm and white in;
Whence to form a mirror pure,
For Love's self-delighting.

Bring a grey cloud from the east,
Where the lark is singing;
Something of the song at least,
Unlost in the bringing:
That shall be a morning chair,
Poet-dream may sit in,
When it leans out on the air,
Unrhymed and unwritten.

Bring the red cloud from the sun
While he sinketh, catch it.
That shall be a couch,---with one
Sidelong star to watch it,---
Fit for poet's finest Thought,
At the curfew-sounding,--- ;
Things unseen being nearer brought
Than the seen, around him.

Poet's thought,----not poet's sigh!
'Las, they come together!
Cloudy walls divide and fly,
As in April weather!
Cupola and column proud,
Structure bright to see---
Gone---except that moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee!

Let them! Wipe such visionings
From the Fancy's cartel---
Love secures some fairer things
Dowered with his immortal.
The sun may darken,---heaven be bowed---
But still, unchanged shall be,---
Here in my soul,---that moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with Thee!

9:40 a.m. - 2008-07-01

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