Thoughts are screaming through my mind, like racing cars on a bridge, weaving and jostling and breaking the rules without appearing to break the rules, and every so often one spins from the edge (because there are no barriers made of tyres - this is not mere sport) and disappears. Except, no wait, it doesn't disappear because my mind appears to be infinite, so it just spins around, bumping into other bridges and scraping pieces of cement and steel from the supports.
There you have it, folks, another crisis. Long overdue, really, like the shifting of the poles. What the doomsayers don't tell you is that we will survive the changes in magnetic fields, because we are resourceful (and annoying) creatures, although this is based on the evidence of blockbuster movies, where we annihilate the aliens - and I suspect that half the time we don't even know how we did it.
(Afraid of water? Really? Build a suit of armour. A wetsuit. Coat yourselves in Vaseline. I suspect that really these aliens figured out how dumb and superstitious we are and figured it was something in the air. And since they hadn't thought to build a suit of armour etc, and probably had no way to test the air to come to a definitive conclusion, they therefore could not afford to lose what brain cells they have left.)
My point is this won't destroy me - but don't tell me it will make me stronger.
To interrupt, and really to prove my point - Interception. Brilliant movie that set my little dinkie cars off on my Lego bridge (circular pun). But the scene where the merry band of blackmailers run from a pursuing band of snowsuit-clad symbols of the subconscious - don't make me laugh. I have had a few encounters with my subconscious and, trust me, its minions certainly don't run around in furry white suits on a snowy holiday.
There are no metaphors for the pain and suffering this force that we live with every day can and routinely does enforce. In fact, chances are you would be the tool of your own torture, so that it wouldn't have to waste time on more dumb creatures - guarding the one it has is probably punishment enough.
My furry pursuers and I have reached a truce, an equitable one. The alternative is pain and suffering in the form of an eternal crisis. This way I only have intermittent ones. Hurrah. But no, these crises are now a bonding experience. Hurrah.
I know where this crisis has come from. I don't like to stand still. My past might catch up. I am in charge of a humongous project, in a job I enjoy, in a company I like, with colleagues I respect. That sounds like a stimulating challenge, right, that doesn't leave much time for boredom. My past is 1 400 km away and for the time being staying put. But I am bored. Which does not imply I want to leave my job. On the contrary.
I am difficult to manage. I am high maintenance. (Don't patronise me by pretending to be surprised.) But I have an insatiable appetite for learning. (This is the basis on which my subconscious and I have bonded so that we are no longer separate entities.) I need to be pushed, incessantly. I need someone to stand there with a stick and an ice pack, and I can't do it on my own because then the stick turns into a cat o' nine tails and the ice pack into the bloodied rags of a damp face cloth.
The usual solutions have made an appearance on the bridge and have one by one been mown down except the last: travelling, Master's, novel. But even this one doesn't quite soothe the bruising. For the time being, I am battling the urge to run by doing the things I had forgotten I liked: making things, drawing, gardening, mothering every living thing in sight (including geckos).
And writing. Hello regular blog postings and appearances on various social media.
Maybe it's ok for there to be drag races on the bridges that connect one roiling island of my mind to another. Something like the progressive levels of the Nordic spiritual plane. I like that metaphor. I might pin it up somewhere. So maybe the furry snow riders aren't pursuing. Maybe they are shepherding.
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