Truth or dare

23 January 2012 06:03 AM Categories: Quotidian existence

image by Allison Marchant http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonated/2183889106/in/photostream/

I woke up angry this morning. It is a good kind of anger, the sort that gets one moving, allows for clarity of vision and for action. It’s freedom and I’m not going to take it anymore and who do you think you are, anyway?

Maybe it was those dreams of French hackers who took over my Facebook account, adding me to groups on postmodernism and cooking, on philosophies of sophistry, on European pop groups and flexible sexuality. Maybe I was too hot last night. Maybe it was the stomachache I went to bed with that could have been the beginning of a night of anguish but was held off with pills. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe this is my protective carapace in action – just try to reach me through this hidden, hard shell. Go ahead. Try.

The house gleams, clean from floor to fur-free floor (with some exceptions). The day will be gray and blustery and I will conquer worlds from the filtered light of cloud cover. I have to-do lists. I have fires to feed. In my mind there is a heated swimming pool in a luxurious addition to a house I’ve never been in. The water shimmers, it moves slightly as if the earth beneath it is adjusting itself. I stand on the lip, feet wet, in my bathing cap and my bathing suit from seventy years ago (the fabric is heavy and the water binds it to my skin). I do not face the pool, but somehow I make the backwards dive, smooth, clean, triumphant, body sharp as a knife.

In the morning I drink coffee. In the afternoon, hot water. At night, beer and wine. When resourceful, present, I cook every night. I improvise, it’s like jazz or being on stage, and so what if the audience is small and my work, my art, hidden?

I am not supposed to be beholden to my moods, to let emotional whim control my day and how I see myself (it’s an Ennegram type four thing, and it makes sense). If I tie my stability to my every strong feeling, I am bound to implode. But there are days when I feel strong and confident, when I am open, and there are days when I feel strong and confident in a defensive way. I like to ride these feelings when I have them, even if I am shadow-boxing in the living room by the heat of a midday fire, alone except for the animals, making the air move around us, watching the raindrops on the window merge and take each other down.

My body and my mind are my own. I am sovereign over this land. Try and catch me, try and categorize me, take what you see and make it into something else. Go ahead. Try.

I dare you.