Two Hearts

5 comments
The estimable Mel of Inkblots fame recently spoke of the discombobulating effect of two worlds colliding.
This is one of my worst fears/realities. My progress in creating an online entity of any real worth has always been held back by my absolute terror of one life colliding with or even caressing the other. Ugh.  It's not that I am holding a lot back - I mean I'm not secretly the svelte twenty something mistress of a Russian oligarch or something - but I have comfort zones around me both in world one and world two and they don't overlap.
But I'm wondering if I have two internal worlds ... or more ... which collide within my very self and cause just the same retraction ?
Normal calls to me like a gilded siren - a tempting dream of ironed shirts, mown lawns, clear kitchens and social gatherings, friends 'for dinner' - heck actually just friends! - smiling set piece garden capers in summer. Success at Slimming World, a sleek, well dressed appeal, holidays with sun and sand. The debts, all paid, the appointed way, with wisdom and restraint. A new bright venture running on oiled accounts and crisply proffered business cards over steaming fresh coffee.
And just as I am about to dip the tip of a toe into her sleek smooth waters...
My heart digs her heels in and whispers wood smoke,  spun wool of much loved Jacob, dye beds and herbs upon herbs, soap and butter making, goats' cheese, hand knits, a roaring fire and silence, the dark of the woods, hand made shelter from the wind and rain.
The gut deep urge to create that reality, hand drawn line by home grown seed, overwhelms. Leaves me a little drunk on damson wine and heady sourdough. Breaks my stubborn heart in two and cries for room to breathe, to dream, to talk, to draw, to share.
I've nurtured this boiling, blistering, baffling conflict for a decade or two. Like its outward bound cousin, it makes me recoil in terror, and as such, it has power over me. A power which, before I reach my demise, I must overcome.
Choose. Do something. Keep choosing. Keep doing.
It's the only way forward I can see.


5 comments:

Jo said...

I know we have this conversation daily, while both of us could be doing something more productive, so you know how I feel. But reading this, feeling your words, the first option made me laugh, run my fingers under an imaginary collar and reach for an imaginary large G&T at the end of a perfectly exhausting day. The second made me almost cry with longing. It's not (quite) my dream scenario so I can only think that the emotions I'm feeling are yours.

mel said...

oh my. yes, to all of it. i have the same warring factions in my own heart -- not identical to, but very similar to yours. i'm ashamed to admit that i've given in to the practicalities in the last while...the Be Sensibles....which are all very well and good and deeply admirable in their own way....but.....well, clearly you already know. xoxo

ps. i think this is the most impassioned piece of writing of yours that i've read here on your blog. which sort of says something, yes? :)

mel said...

pps. and i meant to add to the first ps. -- that your words triggered a giant "pang"....and have me wanting this all desperately for you. xoxo

Jackie said...

We've been attuned for a while. I'm guessing they could be!

Jackie said...

Scarily I believe it does. And our bizarre transatlantic mirroring of each other says something too.

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