This continues directly from yesterday’s post (Day 5). 

To be able to choose your way at all is a huge fucking privilege. It’s a strange and heavy freedom, the freedom to change. Stupid as it sounds, I bore it like a burden the whole of that first year. I remember it as The Season of Doubt. Nothing I did had much conviction, even though I did a lot of it. I’d stepped off that damn road and where was I going? Nowhere. Stuck fucking stuck. 

I remember when things started to turn around. It was like… leaves changing colour. Didn’t even notice it happening. One of the signs was that I simply started being able to identify the things I wanted to do, and say no to those I didn’t. 

It was around that time, I started noticing the weeds in the garden. 

What am I trying to say? 

I think there are certain changes you need to make. Others, you need to let happen. We live in a world where everyone recognizes (and idolizes) the importance of the first, but we don’t understand much about the second. 

Maybe every big change comes with its Season of Doubt. Like a gift set, you know? The shampoo comes with the fucking bath gel. Maybe deep down, we sense this, that we’ll need to face the change after the Change, and are shit scared of it. 

The more we change, the more we know about it, and the less scared we are. 

Those that don’t change stay scared. 

Change. 

I can’t talk about change without talking about moving to Port Dickson. 

If you were to chart the path of my life, it’d probably be a very meandering trail. Something like what an ant would make, or maybe one of those cicaks with their long bodies and sticky little feet clinging to all kinds of surfaces. 

I’d be an ant who dreams of flying with the hawks though. That’s who I am – I come in two parts. 

Moving to Port Dickson early in 2011 was one of those things I never imagined I’d do.  It’s where I stepped off the path – or sorta slid off it, rather – mumbling to myself: ‘no, not that way. Another way.’

The whole of the first year living away from the city was the equivalent of me standing beside the road I’d just stepped off, sucking my teeth and going: ‘oh shit, now what?’

I split this post into two parts. Come back and read the rest tomorrow!

“A Man of Words and Not Deeds” 

A man of words and not of deeds 

Is like a garden full of weeds

And when the weeds begin to grow 

It’s like a garden full of snow 

And when the snow begins to fall 

It’s like a bird upon the wall 

And when the bird away does fly 

It’s like an eagle in the sky 

And when the sky begins to roar 

It’s like a lion at the door 

And when the door begins to crack 

It’s like a stick across your back 

And when your back begins to smart

It’s like a penknife in your heart 

And when your heart begins to bleed 

You’re dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

Zedeck (my dear non-husband) sent me a great link to this rhyme poem written around 1680. It’s a satire about the ‘changeability’ of King Charles II, who promised religious freedom at the start of his rule, a promise he later could not, or chose not, to keep. 

It got me thinking about change. It’s something that we do, but it’s also something that happens to us. 

More on that tomorrow.