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| Triptych Part 1 |
I've been finding it more than passing strange, this ability we have to change our minds. A quirk of nature. But perhaps not.
The green leaves of the eucalypts around this house are of a darker shade, but just now they have an unreal quality, a sense of hyper-realism; their colour stands out bright as texta against the dirty grey of the sky. The storm that has raged for two days now has paused, only paused to catch its breath before it will surely hurl itself once more at the world in a strange contrast to the melancholy that has overtaken me this past week. As a stray break in the clouds paints the thrashing greenery with glitter I close my eyes once more in another attempt at meditation, but I find it easier to concentrate on the sounds that now define the darkened moment, the crashing of the forest outside and the wind that picks up as I listen, and tears once more at all in its path, the thunderous drumming of the rain against the glass and the roof as the heavy clouds let go their load once more, drowning out any sound that might carry from the roads or the town I call home. The soft sounds of movement inside the shelter of this house I have become extremely attuned to, now I find myself no longer living alone, and I realise that I am waiting for them, listening almost eagerly to hear signs that she whose home I now share has awoken. The realisation disturbs me some.
Past experience with housemates and even family has led me to believe I'm much better off in my own space, for all those I have shared with I have eventually come to dislike. Not for any great reason; living with people simply exposes you to all facets of their lives and their personality, their habits and their flaws, and I have always been of low tolerance for continued exposure to people. I firmly believe my ongoing friendship with those I do hold dear is successful in no small way because we do not actually spend great amounts of time together, catching up and enjoying what time we do spend when the demands of our lives allow us to do so. I have flaws of my own I am quite sure would grate on others over long periods; all people are different and of course life would be pure boredom if this were not so, our preferences and tendency to judge others according to our views make up large parts of who we are. My judgement of the woman I now listen for over the storm was initially one of dislike, for no reasons I put stock in now.
I first met her in high school; which is to say, I was attending, she was taking classes as a relief teacher, what the Americans call a substitute. I would have been maybe fifteen, and while my whole life my friends have all been older than I, and adults among them, I never would have thought of a teacher as friend. It would have been as alien to me as befriending the police, or my parents, or any of the authority figures one feels the need to rebel against during that time in ones life. She would have been maybe thirty, and not really a teacher- it showed in the way she was actually interested in getting us to learn, wanting us to care. She tried to connect with our small group as humans rather than seeing us as children, and her efforts certainly got our attention, if no more than that. We weren't known as a good school and at that age we felt the drive to uphold our poor reputation, and did, but I suppose in the years that followed i at least recognised the good deed she had tried to do us. Thinking back now I remember a committee meeting I had gone to about something outside school we had both been involved in and afterwards her offer of a drink- I lived in the next town over and had some time to kill before the arrival of my ride home. The ride arrived early, as we still stood on the footpath, and I think that may well have been the last I saw of her until I ran into her on almost the same footpath last month.
It does occur to me now to wonder what different turnings our lives may make on such very small changes and occurrences.
In the time it has taken me to traverse the distant and not-so-distant ways of memory I have found a kind of mental peace, and I return to the earlier intention I had of quiet meditation, a thing I have long been in the habit of. I am not much of a one for the long sleep, and the mornings are my favourite time; when the weather does not hold us prisoner I walk the shoreline of the lake nearby, meditating in the calm before the world wakes. Mornings like this I sit on the thick rug in what might usually be called the sunroom, facing the trees through the floor-to-ceiling glass that divides us from the wrath of the elements. It is a perfect spot, and in it, safe and dry, I finally bring my mind to focus and my breathing to my regular pattern and drift unaware.
No sound disturbs me now; I read once that a well practiced meditator can reach their goal in a busy train station, or by a bustling thoroughfare, and while I do not consider myself an expert the storm is no longer a sufficient distraction, so much so that I do not notice when it stops. What makes me open my eyes is the warmth and the red behind my eyelids as the clouds part to my left, letting the rising sun pierce through, shining sideways into my eyes in a way that, as a child, I always imagined would make them glow as if with some inner light. To my right and about a metre in front of me, Jane sits, one hand shading her eyes, watching me. I wait; my mood seems changed somehow with the sun, or perhaps the meditation, and I feel strangely lifted and calm. I am comfortable with silence. Jane holds my gaze for a time, drops her hand, closes her eyes. She is quiet and I think she is enjoying the warmth as the light blazes at us through the glass.
'Your face is so calm, Karen. When you meditate. So...peaceful. Innocent.'
I remain silent, no words coming to me, and not looking for any. The sun has stolen my tongue for now. I close my eyes again and try to figure out what has bettered my mood but nothing comes to me, and Jane is content for a time to let the silence remain. I am reminded that she too lived alone before she did me this kindness and offered me a room, and I have found that people who are used to and enjoy solitude are not usually the kind who feel awkward during a lull in the conversation. More frequently though I find I am glad of the company, and it seems my attitude towards people in general is changing, and has noticeably changed in the short time since I moved in.
I am twenty-five years old, and when the house I was renting went up for sale I was happy to ignore it, thinking it would take time to sell and I would not have to make plans immediately. Of course the first lot of people who came through wanted it, and there I was with four weeks to find somewhere to live in a small but busy town with no rental options that weren't either unlivable or unaffordable. Then it was three weeks, then two weeks, and I was on the verge of calling my parents and begging them to come and get me. It would have been a slap in the face to my already bruised and broken sense of pride. I had quit my job eight months before to try and write the novel I have been working on for longer than I am likely to admit, but my preference for living alone had proved the more costly option and slowly but surely I found my novel-writing time being stolen by the article-writing time I had to use to pay the bills. Twenty-five, no 'permanent' work -as my family call it, sneering at my freelancing- and living with my parents? That would truly hurt, but I was ready to make the call and so, preoccupied with my thoughts and the image of my prized Independence breaking up like a ship on the rocks, I was not looking where I was going and walked straight in to Jane. That whole day in my memory now has the feeling of destiny or fate or any of those things I don't believe in attached to it. It was the simple shock of recognition that got us talking, and I think we each quickly found in the other similarities to ourselves. What stands in my mind now was my surprise at my own willingness to engage with another; my usual distaste at smalltalk with near-strangers was replaced with a sense of wonder at how we both seemed to dispense with that and cut straight to the core of what was occurring in our lives. We had a coffee and talked like old friends reconnecting, about things I have since realised we would neither have said to any of our actual friends.
Jane asked if I had a boyfriend, and I rolled my eyes; it was the standard response I usually gave my mother, but she laughed. She had been married, but had divorced before she moved here, before we first had met. I asked, what about since then? She rolled her eyes; we both laughed. The men around this part of the state were one of the reasons my family were constantly wanting me to leave. Jane held the local bachelors in similar regard, but we both loved the place so much we couldn't drag ourselves away. She had not long turned forty, but, she said, it had worried her less than turning thirty. I had stayed because I felt it was the perfect surroundings to write in; she had stayed to take photographs, and had been exhibiting interstate. A book of landscape shots had paid half her mortgage; at this I rested my head on the table.
"A camera, why didn't I think of that!"
We laughed; we laughed a lot, and within a week we were standing in the doorway of her spare room surveying the piles of boxes bearing my name and, more often than not, the single word 'books'. I took four bookcases and the small library that filled them, my bed, my laptop, and one stripey bag of clothes. Almost everything else went into storage. My friends got the good news that I was staying and the bad news that I was canceling the farewell party, and life rolled on, as it will.
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Posted by spencerdj on 2009-11-06 07:58:32 | Rating: | Views: 17
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