just a little fragment of a dream... i couldn't trace it back to where it came from.
i was in a church. that only became clear to me afterwards. somehow i stumbled into this place... i had had another purpose entirely, apparently, and came in as i come in to all spaces, as an atom, an indivisible mystery to myself and to everyone else, somehow unafraid, but always always alone. and i observed these people in the church, as from a distance, as this older man spoke to the congregants, not as strangers, but as friends- people who had a place in his heart, as he had a place in theirs... towards the end of the congregation, i turned around, and saw my friend phil.
phil: how do you like my church? i've been coming here for thirty years.
and then he proceeded to introduce everyone- EVERYONE- and he did so with a naturalness that comes from being one with others: community. and i noticed when he introduced them that i knew he had a place in their heart, just as they had a place in his.
this is ivy. she works over at the capitol, as an assistant to the governor. and this is her son, freddy. [freddy makes a strange bulls symbol and so does phil, and they both connect their fingers briefly. freddy then tries to do the same thing with me, and i awkwardly try but fail.] freddy just got accepted to this jesuit school he's been wanting to get into for- what- two years? two years...
and so on.
and i envied him this.
it was wonderful- this feeling of community. it was a feeling of immortality, in a way, because you knew that if you died, pieces of you, like little shards of light, would live on forever in the hearts of everyone else. you felt known. acknowledged. understood... not like this passing thing, faces recognized for a time, words exchanged briefly, and then the inevitable return to being nameless among nameless others. not a return to being always alone.
*****
i don't understand why i can't melt. am i selfish? i've tried not to be. i've tried to always sacrifice of myself. but the truth is, sacrifice, and the giving away of yourself, is not a real way to form community. it, in a way, is self-aggrandizement, because it allows you to remain yourself... or maybe i just haven't done it enough, done it truly. there are moments- and they are only moments- when i am able to really feel like i have lost myself.
but, no... i think really it is something much humbler and ordinary. it's about sharing of yourself, and allowing others to share with you... and i guess that's something i can't do. there's a core of me that is alternatively made of ice, and made of emptiness. i just don't feel. or i feel hollow. i think i am ashamed of myself, and generally just want to hide myself in matters of importance or purpose. i have been taught to be this way? or maybe i just always was like this.
i care for people. i am pretty sure i would be willing to die for them (because i'd be a small sacrifice). but i can never ever feel community with them, as phil had. i can never be... incorporated. one.
*****
i struggle to write this story i've been tasked to finish in a week. it's maybe THE story of myself. and it is an attempt to resolve some of the turmoil in my heart. it's all about vengeance and shame and hate. the truths within me. these are the things perhaps propping me up all the time. propping me up and bringing me down. about the well meaning me who is secretly longing for the destruction of- what?
i won't belabor the details here. but i- i struggle with it. that's all i'll say.
i want it maybe to be a thing of beauty, because it is a thing of truth. but maybe it will only be what i am: ugly, clumsy, inauthentic.
