There are several questions I am living right now, as my friend Rilke suggests. I wrote this almost two weeks ago and it has sat, waiting - and yet I continue to ask, live and the question.
“Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.”
― Rainer Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
This morning I sat down at my kitchen table, long time favorite spot for morning pages, creative life coaching calls and teaching teleclasses. Yes, occasionally a meal is shared here, also. Occasionally.
This morning I labored at writing my morning pages, though.
I sat and I scoffed and I wiggled but I kept my butt where? Safely and snugly in the chair I bought for $5 at a yard sale last summer, a gorgeous harp back chair, duncan-fife style. Though I am sure I am spelling Duncan-Fife wrong I am writing this way so you can see first hand how ridiculously morning pages sometimes look.
I managed to stay and after I lamented briefly to Emma about not being in Yosemite, where I would rather be and had planned to be today, but a bunch of spoiled baby politicians decided it would be fun to shut down all the national parks.
I dropped Emma at school and set off to take a few random photos as has become my second creative practice of the day.
“I want to go look at my house,” I whispered to myself internally, a home I long ago lusted for and even made an offer on but the owners decided not to sell.
I blinked twice when I saw it was for sale again.
If this was a lifetime movie, love scene music would have started playing.
There were the requisite children coming from other homes on the street gathering at the bus stop. I hungrily took photos before I asked a woman sitting against the fence post about the house: how long had it been vacant? What was the story?
She was a nice enough gal, lived on South Union so I was pretty sure there was a story there more than I could see on her hoodie and t-shirt with the heart sewn on it.
I called the real estate company having absolutely no idea whether or not it was a practical thought, but I felt like/feel like I must visit the house again, even if it is to just say goodbye.
The real estate agency called me. It fell out of escrow yesterday.
Maybe this will become a lifetime move afterall. Maybe the Morning Pages angels are saying, “Keep your butt in the seat and magic happens.” Maybe this is the way the Yosemite Gods are apologizing - perhaps it is John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt with puppet strings saying, “Give Julie this home!
She has great plans for it or will as soon as she has it!”
For now I will pick up and move along.
It feels like the right thing, and the only thing, to do right now.
For now, I looked at the home and the question still rests. I may go back down there with my notebook and take some time to love the questions, alone and in quiet.
= = = = = =
Julie
Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her
word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown
Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different
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