Slate Clean

The infection slowly releases its grip on my body. My breaths are strained, slow, like those of an aging man, but my body begins to unfold itself, to awake. I sit in the living room in a yoga pose and let the pieces fall into the puzzle. With each stretching muscle, the picture becomes clearer: what must be done, what life this is to live.

I long for security, I do. I long for exactly the same stability that you carry with you, the savings account and predictability and control that you cannot live without; I am not inhuman. I am overwhelmed by the continuing support from those around me, who pick me up when I get too close to the edge, who feed me in every sense and who do not tire; I am ashamed of my continued need for them and inability to repay what I owe. I am not ignorant.

But I slip into the bath with Henry Miller, and he speaks of Greece and strangers who instantly feel like home, he bubbles with adventure and paints dinners like were they masterpieces of art. He speaks of home as a place one loves but itches to leave. You long to break out and test your powers... to make friends... to look beyond walls and cultivated patches of earth. You want to cease thinking in terms of life insurance, sick benefits, old age pensions, and so on. My toes began to wrinkle in the hot water, but my soul was young anew.

I ache now. But were I steadily confined within the walls of a job, a house, a savings account, would I not ache worse? I should come to my senses, I hear you. But I fear if I let go this dream, this itch, this fire, then I let myself give up, and I die.

I ache now. I am alive.