Pumpkin Pius (no relation to content whatsoever)

Two issues at hand. Or maybe more.
It's so hard to get this (*)written down. Clear, without digressions.
The whole issue of letting things & weight go. That.
Fear and near-certainty that as soon as I'd let it all go, someone would die because at that point I'd able to handle it.
This taking everything so, so seriously, this general heaviness of mind, body and spirit. Being weighed down quite literally. There's a heaviness in everything I do and think and feel.
If I don't let go of the mind-weight everything including me will remain heavy. Let go of fear, traumas, ingrained thought-patterns, expectations, judgments, kilo's.
 "I should be/do/have (...)" thinking. Comparisons.

Second thing: my father.
He said he wanted to spend more time with me, near the end of October. It's the end of October and I've been in a state of extreme tension and anxiety for weeks over possibly having to spend more than an hour with my father.
Why 'having to'? Because I can't speak up in front of him. Objections, suggestions. I don't exist as a person when I'm around him, only as a collection of wounds, memories and insecurities which flare up like a nasty case of eczema.
What I can do about it is letting go.
Which I am not able to do yet. Because I am too scared and because I'm not willing to force myself.
I wonder whether it's even possible to forcibly let go.

There's such an enormous amount of tension, anxiety and fear doing the rounds in my bowels. Painful, tense, seized up, bowels making a fist, it's been like this for weeks, even months. But it's so bad right now that I'm hoping it is part of a process of letting go.
A secret process taking place behind my back? 'laughs'
No more forced growth, the backlash is inevitable.
Gentle, effortless, pleasant.
Should it happen, that's the way it will happen.
No more coercion.

And through it all the weight issue.
I cannot answer with a straightforward and wholehearted "Yes." to my question: "Do I want to be thin?" Or: "Dare I be thin?"
Which basically comes down to: "Dare I let go of all that's redundant and unnecessary?"
"Dare I let go of everything false?"
"Dare I be real?"
The answer is still no.


(* Even harder, since I wrote this piece in Dutch first (not a habit) so afterwards had to translate, which took a long time.)

Offline heaviness & light

Monday 25 September

Rage; sudden and - although I'd like to tell myself differently - powerless. Powerless rage. Anger at everyone and everything too close for comfort, everything, life, circumstances and in the end (naturally) anger at myself. Violent anger. To choose this, to be this, this life? Having lived through so much only to cower down in sight of the little things. Do I really need all this shit? All this stuff, these things to feel safe? So many layers around my self all constructed, carefully put in place by ME. All I've been through, all the strength I exhibited and here I crumble before the minor things in life. Such fear. How ridiculous and demeaning. Anger, lots of anger. Hiding, hiding, hiding. Still afraid of saying my say. Afraid of persecution. A thread through lives lived before this one. The penalty of speaking your truth is death, and is that so bad compared to the penalty of not speaking? Which is cowardice and an ever-retreating, shriveling inwards. Come on, you've been here before. You can end it now. End it. Stop this. Talk, speak, write. Let them. Let them judge you, kill you, shun you, whatever it takes. You're SHRIVELING. Paying the price for previous lives? Really?


Wednesday 5 October

Terrified today. Sounds of people walking by scare me, stirring feelings of persecution, as if people could suddenly swarm together and decide to come and get me at any moment.
Must be old stuff, right? There is no clarity, no decisive moments, it's all just waiting now. Terrified. Sound of a chainsaw is grinding my nerves, cutting through my gut. There's nothing I can do and there's nothing I can do about that.
Can't say nothing happens, because for the past month or so I've been digging, planting, cutting and pruning like a maniac. In the yard, that is.
Best moment of the week: saw a hedgehog yesterday and watched it eat contentedly from the cat-food I served it. Then it went to sleep in the grass and I saw its side gently rise and fall. That was wonderful.

I get out of bed for an episode of "Madam secretary", coffee and a look at the new plants in the garden. Maybe that's enough for now. Even though I wake up dreading the day and all the horrors it might bring. Checking my phone regularly for alarming texts. I'm in a near-constant state of anxiety. And, again, there's nothing I can do about it.
There's not sufficient clarity to write myself through this. I can only say what is. Today's theme is persecution.

Reading Etty Hillesum again. It dawned on me, after only two decades, that her book/diaries are her journal of spiritual autolysis. Her writing spans two years, the average duration of the process. Although her diary was cut short by illness and 6 months later the Nazis, her process wasn't, which continued when she was in the camps (on a voluntary basis at first) until she was killed.
She did this in the midst of real persecution.


Wednesday 12 October

Glimpse of the past. I was just thinking about the heaviness in everything. Getting up, and throughout the day, it's all so heavy.
Somewhere in my mind I know perfectly well what to do to get rid of all this weight in my life, my body, my mental world, but I shrink back from doing it. Sometimes I tentatively reach into that place and then again feel I'm not ready, the fear is too great.
I wonder whether I would be able to go for walks again if I let the weight go, let it all go. Release. I've been working in the garden a lot but a walk now and then would be nice. (At the moment my left Achilles tendon is, well, my Achilles' heel; it starts hurting after ten minutes.)
So I was just contemplating the heaviness of life when I heard shrieking and screaming and swearing coming from a few houses away. I was at the window, about to close it when she started. She came out of her house, declared something to the world about her (ex-)husband/boyfriend and went back inside to scream at him some more, demanding her house-key back.
Another woman appeared, gathered the children who were in the tiny playground opposite the house and brought them inside, to the fighting screaming couple.
Well, she screamed and he said over and over "Can't you think it over a little?" "Just think about it a bit? Reconsider?" The kids were brought in, the front door shut and I closed the window, feeling awful for these kids, knowing the damage this does. Blast from the past. Just when I had heaviness on my mind.
Is this what I can't let go of? I am afraid that as soon as I let go, my sister, brother in law, niece, nephew, mother or father will die, because at that point I'd be able to handle it. Magical thinking, but not entirely. Isn't that how life works?

They are weights around my neck. Weights I don't want to lose.

Well, I'm not going to push myself into anything.
Two decades ago I was able to gather forces inside me and push them into a crescendo of sudden insight and forward momentum.
I suspect I am still able to do this, but at some point I chose not to.
A: I have been forced plenty.
B: If I let it happen naturally, it's more likely to be a real change, instead of a temporary high.
C: The process is ongoing and patience needs more practice than eureka-moments.

Rereading Etty Hillesum, especially the part where such a huge change occurs in her and she seems to turn into a Human Adult almost within the space of one week is humbling and gripping.

While terrible, terrible History was written,
her life ended in a poem.

----

Later.

After being glued to CNN for 4 days, now reading some of the highest expressions of the human spirit while listening to classical music on the radio (the Heart & Soul list).

My God, this journal entry on the day she loses the love of her life. She's so content and grateful. Tears streaming down my face, trying to read it in intervals. Trying not to let this great hurt and sorrow inside me take over, because I'm expecting a package and I don't want the mailman to see my red eyes.
Silly, maybe. I don't want people to see my grief, my vulnerability. Any time I consider it, this feeling comes up, this warning as if it is a matter of life and death. As if it could be fatal to show what's in my heart. Well, maybe it could be. I'm not there yet, in any case.

Arvo Pärt now, "Tabula Rasa".
Memory of the first time I heard him, in someone's living room; I was twenty years old and sitting on this guy's couch right across from his excellent and very expensive sound system and he introduced me to Arvo Pärt. Those violins! I was crushed under the weight of so much light. It was almost too much to bear (too much to hide as well, I was so overcome). Unforgettable.