Mmmm. Time

Now that I have some time, I am catching up on all of the people I owe e-mails to today. I have this good friend, who is mostly an e-mail buddy as she lives in Canada, and we almost never see each other, but that doesn't ever make her feel like less of a friend. Tonight I e-mailed her and because she is an understanding type of person, this is what came out:
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“I sat with the Celtic Animal Oracle today for the first time in years, and realized how much I missed feeling connected to a spiritual life. Maybe the times that you're least the conscious of being on a spiritual path are the times that you are most on one. Or maybe not. I miss the feeling of a connection like that. The comfort, the assurance. The constant gentleness. My boss got mad at me for getting mad at him the other day, and I realized how much everything at work always feels like it needs be a fight, even when it doesn't. Work aside, I've somehow turned into a fighter, an arguer, a cranky, defensive, hair-trigger person. I did a few massages the over last couple of weekends, and when I did them, I felt soft and flowing and quiet and knowing. Sun was coming in the windows and I had time to notice. I knew what to do. There was no argument with the soft tissue, the spine, the temples, the soles of the feet. There was no argument with my hands. Nothing to defend or defend against. And yet when each time when I left that space, I immediately fought again: with traffic lights, birds, other people, the pavement, my own jaw. I feel like I'm a coin that flips: heads/tails/heads/tails. I feel like Two-Face from Batman.”

Right now, there is time. There is always time, but it's the wrong sort of time. I've never been one of those writers who are able dash off ten minutes over toast in the morning or grab fifteen minutes on my lunch break and crank out a brilliant line. It takes me at least ten minutes just to warm up, just for my synapses to stop jumping around long enough for me to feel calm, to begin to feel a flow. When I was doing massage therapy, I had physical rituals that helped; that would take me into the calm state I needed to be in very quickly. I just never figured out how translate them into the writing process. I would like to practice some this week, just to see where it takes me. But I want to practice my massage-therapist formal self in all areas of my life.

I fantasize that I used to be a serene person. I have never, ever been a serene person. But I think what I remember is that I could reach the river of peacefulness so quickly, just by having my hands on another person, just by tuning and in listening with my nerve endings, my skin. What I need to remember is that there isn't one space in life where there there is peace and flow and one space where continuous combat is required of me. It's all the same space. My own perception is the only thing that shifts the energy from one to another.