Castle Walls

Constraint and protection are two arms of one embrace

The walls keep us in. The walls keep those who would harm us out. The walls are a construct of my own mind. The walls are closing in. The walls hold off the rain and cold and keep me cozy when the world wants to snuff my light from the face of it.

Perception and perspective are important.

They are also very difficult to achieve when we are in the grasp of strong emotion.

I have been grasped by emotions since early summer. Autumn is nearing, and if anything, it’s gone from an embrace to an anaconda’s strangling coils. Is it any wonder I’ve developed claustrophobia? That was an unpleasant sensation, watching a video on caving and feeling the heart rate spiking… I shut it off. I tried again a few days later, just to see if it had been unique. No, it was not. I can no longer endure the idea of being trapped.

And yet, from some perspectives, life can be a trap. Not life, as in living, breathing, existence, although I suppose from other perspectives that yes, that could be argued. No, I mean life as in eating, sleeping, making the money to do the first and have a place to do the latter, and caring for those who are in your life with you, sharing those walls.

Responsibilities hem in your freedoms, constraining you to the possible but nothing too extravagant. You don’t have the time, the energy, the money to spend on that dream. Put that dream back. Choose a smaller one. No, smaller than that… yes, that will do within the parameters. Now, you need to shrink your expectations to fit that dream, they can’t just billow out all over the place uncontrolled and enormous.

Don’t dwell in this place. If you do, the only thing that will grow is resentment. It’s easy to say ‘learn to be content’ and oh, so very difficult to achieve that, and it’s a constant effort. Like weeding the garden. If you don’t stay on top of it, pulling the wee things quickly, they grow strong and choke out the plants you wanted to grow. The resentment chokes out the love, and safety, and the walls turn from cozy sanctuary to unyielding prison.

You’re trapped in here with yourself. You, and you alone, hold the key to your escape. Liberty, or the alternative, is all inside your head, and the skull the ultimate walls, in one perspective. You can push against those walls, raging futilely, or you can grasp the beauty of your surroundings and stop. Wonder. Look around with wide eyes.

Find a place to rest.

Step back, find a new perspective, and study it for a while. If it’s not enough, move laterally until you find another perspective. If you can, go far away and look back at where you came from. When you draw near your lodestone again, what does it feel like? What did it feel like to travel away from your domicile, your castle, your domain? It is yours. Own it, embrace it, draw it close to your heart. Here is where you are. Here is what keeps you motivated to, perhaps, head over there, in a new direction, towards a new place. But you cannot escape the magnetic attraction of home where the heart is, and your heart is the center of your universe. No one else’s. Just you.

When the storms rip the roof off and throw it over their shoulder, laughing, and the walls come clearly into perspective, you’ll know. They were protecting you, this whole time, even while they pinned you into the display case like a beautiful moth, wings spread but never able to fly again.

I put out my hand and touch a wall, feel the texture of the surface. I look and see the color, the blue of the robin’s egg. I hear the sounds from the other room, the homely clatter of kitchen doings. I take a breath, and let it out.

I’m here. This is good.