Lives
I'm thinking most people have different lives within the greater life they lead. Usually, it's the work life, and the home life. One wakes up, perhaps indulges in the home life a bit, and then, enters the work life part of their day. It is usually nothing they would do at home, for pleasure, or what they could share much with their family (other than the paycheck), or what they participate in, intimately. It isn't a reflection of something inside of themselves.
I don't know too many people whose work life and home life flow into each other. But I know a few. It is something to see, this mesh, actually being lived in front of you. It's not celestial harmonies and all that, but these folks are living well. They don't all make money, but those few people are enjoying what they are doing, and how they are living, immensely. One in particular, a poet, teaches poetry, writes, reads, gives readings, reviews, edits, supervises contests. He has a family, and is still with the woman he first married. The woman and his family add to his poetry. He loves what he does, and it works it's way out through how he lives his life.
I think it is a more human way to live, this blending-of-lives-within-our-life. We can dwell among those parts of the world that are most personally important, and meaningful, to us. We become ourselves more fully, become more intimately connected to the world. I don't think this kind of life can be a withdrawl, a turning inward with no window to sharing ourselves with others to dwell alone. It must be a rich participation, however small and close, with what we love, and who. Creation and communion.
We get glimpses of it. We feel it late at night when we have tea, settling into welcoming couches or beds or chairs or arms, and realizing the day held before us moments of who we feel we really are, or who we really want to be. Not many, not even every day, but we know them when they happen. The moments stand out like lightning surrounded by murky hours of what we feel we should do, have to do, to move through the day. The drive. The meeting. The bank. The clock.
I'm not certain how to move my lives of work and home and online together. I take small steps, and hope they are down the right path. Starting a small business. Learning the drums. Writing. Choosing better where I live, and how. I resist anything I feel pulls my lives further apart. I am not a good employee, but I am an adequate one. I trade my life's time for dollars, and ultimately, I'll purchase my freedom. I'm not going to put in overtime gratis.
All I can do is continue, and then around look where I am and hope the lines of my lives are a bit tighter, and the way ahead still open. I'm taking the risk. I'm following the poetry instead of the prose.
13 December 2002