DREAMS IN A BACKWATER

PART FIVE

II

(1)

Spring was exceptionally long, cool and wet this year, but it ended abruptly one day during the last week of June; almost overnight the sultry summer heat was upon us.  I have been expecting this, of course, but also dreading it, as I know how unbearable my apartment can get when the hot weather goes on without break for too long a time.  There's nothing I can do about it except to hope that, this summer, it won't be too bad . . .

At least the depression I've been experiencing recently has lifted – or, at any rate, weighs on me a little less heavily than it did before.  Like the weather, this change in attitude occurred abruptly.  One night, having sunk into a state of the deepest gloom, and having become thoroughly lost inside all the mental mazes I'd constructed with regard to who and what "I" consist of; what does or does not constitute my "self"; etc, etc, I roused myself from my torpor, gave my head a shake, stamped a mental foot and said to myself:  "Dammit – I am Me!"  This statement, though both obvious and simplistic, had the desired effect of somehow making me feel immediately better.  Like a child who's been told by some prohibitive figure of authority to behave himself, or was forced to repress his natural character so as to accord with a set of arbitrarily applied rules, I was feeling the need to assert a sense of my own independence.  "I am Me!" I said, and this restored, in a single blow, my sense of having a genuine center.  It stilled my inner restlessness and allowed me to bring myself back into focus:  and this gave me the feeling of being once again self-empowered and in control.

But what do I really mean by this statement, "I am Me"?  A necessary but sublime sort of egoism is suggested, I suppose, by which means I come to realize the ongoing cohesiveness of the experiential self that exists within, even while ceasing in my desire to lay hold of that self by intellectual means.  It causes me to shift my attention so that, instead of constantly looking inward, dividing myself up into ever smaller parts, I look outward from a centralized, experiential core:  I look out at the world I perceive with my senses; I listen to the words that formulate in my mind; I witness the emotional responses I feel.  I perform these acts in the full awareness of the cohesive nature of my own beingness, and this awareness gives me an ongoing sense of finality even within the constant changefulness of becoming.  I am Me.  Every living being must have a sense of selfness, an apprehension of what is called the "ego," no matter how rudimentary its form of apprehension may be; without it, it has no motive power, no basis for either action or defense, no reason to be.  Perhaps, in asserting my recognition of this, I can at last lay my sense of futility to rest.

I take a walk to the cemetery, and settle under my favorite tree for a half-hour's rest and contemplation.  "I am Me," I think; and gradually all the pressures and worries of the day relax their grip.  "I am Me," I think; and gradually become aware of the hiss and sigh of the wind coursing through the trees up above me; and begin to notice the grasses and mosses growing round about me, taking pleasure in their many variations of size and shape and color.  I notice too the pale white knobs of the clover blossoms poking out from among the grasses; also some minuscule, but rather pretty, bell-shaped purple flowers.  Ants are soon busy crawling over my pant-legs and into my shirtsleeves; flies come to pay me a call and nose about hungrily over my bare hands and feet.  Looking further afield I notice that, about twenty feet away, a pine tree is in its death throes:  the bark hangs loosely from its trunk; large chunks of it have peeled away and the wood underneath looks punky.  Scanning upward, I see that the limbs of the tree all point downward now; many, though not all, are devoid of needles.  Glancing elsewhere about me, I observe that the cemetery stones remain as stolid and implacable as ever, though many seem to be tilting at odd angles, evidence of the earth's slow heaving.  Bird songs fill the air, some musical, some not; some being made of single phrases repeated over and over; others being mere squawks.  Somewhere in the sky far, far above me I hear a long, smooth, droning sound – an airplane in flight.

I become gradually aware too of what I might call a sort of "sloshing about" of thoughts and emotions inside me.  I examine them curiously.  What purpose do they serve?  Are they simply the ripplings caused by the act of being emerging from the void?  Are they beingness itself, and if so, how so, and why?  These questions catch at me, snag me:  I let them go.  I refuse to build any more theoretical constructs concerning the existence of my inner environment.  It's the story of my life that I want now.  And the story of my life is told simply through its telling – of what happens as I follow whatever internal and/or external promptings as cannot, or will not, be denied.  But the only internal prompting I will allow today, sitting under a tree in the cemetery, a cooling breeze blowing across my face, is the one that tells me to ignore any and all of the intellectual and emotional pressures I feel within.  "I am Me!" I say, and let the rest go.  For it is only in this way that the beingness that I am can open, flower, expand . . .

Meanwhile the cool breeze soothes; the dappled sunlight teases; and I begin to grow sleepy:  until, that is, I feel a sudden light thunk against my chest.  Glancing down, I spy a small, green insect sitting there.  "Curious looking little bugger," I think.  Its front end is shaped rather like a crab, but its back end is long and pointy and curves slightly upward.  Its thorax pulsates as it takes in and releases the air; gently it rocks from side to side on six greenish, bent legs.  I bend my head down to take a closer look . . .

Then the little rascal jumps:  and when he jumps, he jumps right into my face.