Reporting from my Own Wilderness

"I can at best report only from my own wilderness."

-Loren Eiseley

Ptolemy, entering his dark den of models and maps that he believes proved that the universe is geocentric, scorches them in a fire, that burning science. A fire that is a fire that is a fire. Because fire then is the same as fire now. He stares into its flames. Fire. Something that always what was it was, in front of him or afar. And now his Earth, not the centerfold of the cosmos, not the celestial playboy, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Ptolemy sits, forever fist-under-chin, defeated.

And this is how I am--

The other day, I was sorting through old photographs and came across this one of me and my father.

There we were, such bright things before a dark ocean and her tempest. At first, while gazing at the picture, I was amazed that storms have not changed since then. It's the same darkness, the same various shades of blues and grays, the same whirlwind formations of nimbus, the same misty veil. The little, tanned girl has grown and her footprints in the sand are now deeper. The man has aged, his footprints slower, more deliberate. Both have learned. But the sky is sky is sky. And the ocean--ocean, ocean, ocean.

Of course there are the intricacies of the fevering earth, her ice-melt, her Niño, her compromised atmospheres. But as sure as lightning leads to thunder, rain still falls all the same, roots structure the ground, and mist rises in the sun's lasso.

That little, hair-bun girl to this day walks around inside herself, feeling the walls for switches to turn on, off. On. The control panel that is her mind illuminates and she lives a life of on-switches and open windows, her eyes observing the hands reaching for hers, her ears acknowledging the silence following those hands, her body sensing the coursing of blood through her body. On and on and on in her world, her corridor. And you are there. And you and you and you are there. You beautiful things. You beautiful, foul, amazing, curious things and people in her corridor. And it is through this corridor or channel that she experiences the world.

However, like Ptolemy, she is perplexed that her channel isn't the existential centerfold, the purpose-driven playboy she thought it was. Her corridor was not experi-centric. The you and you and you. The beautiful, foul, amazing, curious yous--you all have your own corridors. Your own control panels, your own on-switches.

This is helpful.

Being a naturally anxious person, Sonder (four letters shy of wonder) is a lovely reminder that I do not have all control. I have the natural tendency to believe that if someone I love is upset, it's because of me. I wasn't there to prevent the sadness. Or I'm not there to take away the sadness. Or I am there and still failing to take away the sadness. But Sonder reminds me that other peoples' issues are often not in my corridor, but in theirs. They're experiencing their world, sauntering along their self-made corridor, turning on and off their own switches. Or maybe there aren't switches. Maybe there are windows or lanterns or chandeliers or candle light. In some cases, complete darkness. In others, complete illumination. I look at my mother, my sister, my father, my boyfriend, my dogs, and despite the worlds of love I have inside of me for all of them, that does not determine reciprocity. For all I know, I can be a down-turned portrait in their corridors. I can be breeze through a cracked window, a cherished sugar egg. I can be a broken chair, a throw pillow, a chewed-off hang nail. I can be a grain of sand under the giant dome of wondrous sky in their corridor.

I once read somewhere that Other peoples' opinions about you are none of your business.

And what a relief that is, if I can get my control panel to believe so. However, regardless of everything and all, Auden is on the nose:

"If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me."

#words #essay #personal