Thursday, November 8, 2012

Beginning




Vortex, Eddy Or Whirlpool With Foam



My beginning was just a continuation, a new twig caught in a whirlpool. The whirlpool was my family. My presence in it didn't change anything, didn't slow down the maniacal, swirling  waters. Maybe it sped them up a little. Some would claim that it did.

The whirlpool became a waterspout -- a small pillar of water wreaking private havoc in a private lake. Most people who observed it pretended they hadn't. Some mistook it for a specter or a miracle. Eventually it decayed and those who had been swept up in it drifted apart.

My true beginning happened when I left the East coast for California. I chose the sensual golden hills, the manzanita, the madrone, the live oaks, the creeping fogs, the appalling vastness of the Pacific Ocean. I married,  settled down and soon created my own whirlpool into which my daughter was born. Eventually she broke free, swimming off on her own.

For much of our lives, I think, we are captives of a circular momentum -- a senseless chaotic repetition of  actions (our own and other people's) we aren't quite strong enough to escape.

The beginning is when we finally break free of the whirlpools and the waterspouts, when we experience that wonderful sensation of swimming alone toward a chosen destination.

I am (as you can see) quite fond of metaphors and so my metaphor for this sense of breaking free is taken from last summer's visit to the coast of Maine. There I plunged, quite on impulse and fully clothed, into the chilly waters of Grimes Cove and swam, buoyed by ocean swells, toward the float (at high tide, a good distance from the shore) that had been there ever since my childhood. I pulled myself up onto the float and lay on my back. I was breathless, tingly and euphoric.

I was an old woman beginning anew.







14 comments:

  1. I love your use of imagery and metaphors. This was brilliant!

    Kathy
    http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com

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  2. I became swept into the current of your writing, as I usually do. This was a wonderful entry!

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  3. I fell in right after Amy started swimming! Loved it and totally agree with the whole whirlpool thing of family. Retirement has given me the swimming alone aura and I am completely engulfed in it, but never losing sight of the shoreline.

    Awesome, as usual.

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    1. I definitely see you a lone strong swimmer staying the course.

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  4. I so enjoy your metaphors. Thank you. "Just a new twig caught in a whirlpool." Wonderful.

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  5. I always love reading your words, but this post is my favorite yet. Tara is very lucky to have a mother who is unabashedly herself. I had such a mother and because of her, I am utterly comfortable to be unapologetically myself. It's no wonder I like you so much. You feel like home.

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    1. Thanks, Beth. If you ever visit remotest New Mexico, I hope you'll drop by. I suspect we'd have a lot to talk about.

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  6. well old woman..so thankful you have a STRONG HEART! :0) (LOVED THIS)

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  7. LOL. As far as I know, my heart is still strong. Glad you enjoyed.

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  8. Beautifully written.

    http://joycelansky.blogspot.com

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