Being wide open emotionally, sensibly (of the senses), allowing all to penetrate to one’s soul, makes it difficult to live. . . . Dealing with the exigencies of daily living makes it difficult to be open, to sense, to feel all, to allow all to penetrate.
I haven’t yet discovered how to balance those two: being open in the way that I was when at the age of 21 I wrote the long letter to Sharon — almost entirely description of scene and sense, in my memory — sitting on the top deck of the ferry in the wee hours of the morning crossing the Channel to the Brittany coast (St Malo); and being matter-of-fact and detached, business-like and sensible (in the sense of common sense) enough to do what’s necessary to manage my life and my business well.
I was thinking about this while walking on the hillside — mountainside — above Drašnice this evening. The swallows were darting and singing above me, below me, and I was sad that I wasn’t feeling the beauty and magic, the poetry of it overwhelming me as it once would have. Once I get on solid ground financially, maybe I will again relax, release, allow an opening.
