Listen with your heart.

When we were little, my mom would talk to my sister and me about listening to ourselves, our bodies and not let our emotions rule our minds. Maybe not so succinctly, but the older I’ve become, the more I understand that that’s what she was trying to teach us. How not to be so emotional because you can easily get lost but not to be completely analytical so as to miss out on chances to be truly happy. Contradictory? Sometimes it feels that way.

She used to tell us about how when she was little she would try to “run like the Indians” in the woods, as silently as possible. She could’ve passed for being Native if it weren’t for the pale English and Finnish skin yet with her long straight dark hair, sunlit dark brown eyes and high cheekbones she still managed to be called Pocahantas every now and then. She also told us a trick that helps her fall asleep and would repeat it to us many times throughout our childhood. “What you need to do is lie flat on your back, arms to your side and take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes and try not to think about anything except trying to feel and listen to your heart beat.” It’s amazing how capable we are of comforting ourselves by listening to our own hearts, beating beneath a scant few inches of dermis, muscle and bone. For all our accomplishments and advances, our beating hearts, the very things that keep us alive, are so vulnerable. Fragile enough that a simple cold can react against the heart and cause arrest yet strong enough to carry us through the most heartbreaking and frightening moments of our lives.

Sometimes I forget what she told me. To listen.

This morning, after ruminating on the whimsical fun last night, a ridiculous notion slid into my thoughts. I’m bearing with myself as I’m actually putting this down into words that I can see in front of me as opposed to just thinking about it because it’s silly. Every man that I’ve made some connection with, had some spark, a promising flirtation since I’ve been in Virginia has not been from Virginia. Is it a sign? I don’t know… Do stars really twinkle? Yes and no. It depends on how you look at them. The whole thought is insubstantial and juvenile yet strikingly true. And it just falls in line with something that I’ve been feeling for a while but haven’t really wanted to consider because of the enormity of change that would occur because of it. It’s time to move on. If I were to strip away every last outside influence such as the two wonderful men I live with, who’ve become dear friends, a few amazing people from work, lack of monies, etc., I can hear, appallingly loud and clear, what my heart wants. There are dreams of financial success, big city experiences, world travel, local celebrity, etc….but it’s just not me. It is in a sense, but this has never really felt like home. The right step in the right direction but not home.

And I swore I wouldn’t touch on this because it only clouds my focus for organising my thoughts so I can get a better sense of my ability to write…but I’m feeling somewhat disenchanted by the fact that my interactions with men in my dreams are much more fulfilling and satisfying than any interactions I’ve had with men I’ve actually met.

Wholly distracted now trying to find the name of a print I remember seeing in humanities classes. The image of man kneeling at the edge of the horizon with dark blue sky and stars in the background and lifting up the edge of the world to peer into the universe. I can’t bloody recall anything particular to it to help me find it.

And I found it!