Searching for a new life
It’s hard to recall a time before the raft. If there was a life when I wasn’t clinging precariously to or confidently peacocking about its decks, I’ve locked those memories away. Or they’ve been scrubbed and cleansed by the abrasive salt in this ocean of suffering. The unsatisfactoriness of this raft, this life, repeatedly engulfs me and yet somehow for some inexplicable reason an unseen current sucks at my very being. A relentless pulling to…….to what? Was there the promise of a better life? Was this the reason I climbed aboard what seems like decades ago? As if at the corner of my watery vision I almost feel a submerged part of me knows why. Was this the secret whispered in my ear in a half remembered dream?
The edges of my vision blacken slowly as once more my lungs compress in on the last remaining oxygen. Then the blazing brightness of the endless horizon burns my eyes and my lungs gratefully refill before I’m forced back down into the murky depths. I hear echoes of voices arguing. The confident commands of those who want the course to remain unchanged. Their arrogance threatening the very air around them.
“This is definitely the way. We can’t change course now.”
Some meekly proposing minor alterations whilst instinctively knowing they will never be heard over the mocking cries of gulls. Heads down, naively trusting their self appointed leaders as their squawking slices the silence. I see the daydreamers, staring up, gazing as they talk of stars, whilst all the while the direction never seems to alter. Always onwards, always facing the faint line of hope. As if ignoring the mundane pushing and shoving upon it, the raft wrestles with the roiling waves. Going its own way despite its passengers.
There appear to be many different even conflicting reasons for being adrift on this raft. Growing weary of suffering, either real pain or the threat of it seems to be a common thread in people’s stories. Less clear is how some must disembark somehow as they aren’t always present. Yet I’ve never seen anything but the boundless water that holds us perilously afloat. Others join briefly, surrounded by a false bravado of laughs and jokes before similarly vanishing from the temporary safety. Possibly swept away and under, never to be seen again. Some hold fast to their roles aboard as though this was purpose enough. The perennial paddle to nowhere becoming irrelevant besides constantly fixing their sense of who they are and how others need to see them.
I’ve fallen off the raft before. Fingers prised free by the biting cold. Concentration lost in the boredom, robbing the balance from my body. Tossed violently out when my confidence grew into arrogance and saturated my world. But this time when the going got rough I jumped. I actually jumped off the raft. A part of me screaming “enough is enough!” Was I taking charge of my life at last? Or did I just want to give up the fight? Become one with the water. Let it permeate every pore so ‘I’ was no more. As soon as the water swallowed me the ‘screamer’ was suddenly elusive, evaporating in the ever changing foam around me. Once more I feel a flash of something, a dissolving, a merging, a letting go.
I’m thrown through the surface again, lungs do their thing and then just for a second I get the tiniest glimpse. Then I know. I believe in the other shore. It’s my burden, it’s one of my secrets. And it’s beautiful.
The raft bobs up into my vision, lifted by the waves up ahead. I never made it that far on my own. Accepting the constantly changing difficulties and the simple serene peace in surrender I gently head back towards it.
Firm but gentle hands haul me aboard once more and then I notice something new. Are the twinkling lights in the periphery of my vision from a welcome shoreline or are they just the fraying edges of my consciousness?
Hope swells and lifts me as the raft rises. Maybe I really will find someone with whom I can share my secrets.
