The wind is blowing the leaves of these trees so slowly, so beautifully, that I can't help but to be distracted by the quiet sound. The sun is slipping through the fronds of the palms, dancing across my feet, my pants, my table, my books. At a distance - just far enough to be soothing and not noisy - I hear the cars and trucks driving down Vineland.
But there's one sound that breaks me: the whisper of notes that trail across someone's backyard, over the slats of my fence, and into my arms. I can't tell if it's a cd or someone actually playing the piano - it's very faint. The sounds drift by and fade out now and again because they are too far away. Part of me wants them closer - to lose my thoughts in the sound of the trilling melody, the repetitive keys. And part of me loves them just where they are. They are far enough away from me that I am not able to absolutely shut down my thoughts.
I just realized, before all of this distracting came to pass, while I opened Traveling Mercies, that my defense mechanism is nonchalance. It's being blunt and hiding in the attitude behind those thoughts. This revelation, as several others have in the past 24 hours, stunned me. It caught me off guard.
It has been rather humbling in the past hours to realize how little I know about myself. How out of tune I am with reality. How much of my time I spend in the knowledge and perceptions in my head, and how little of it I spend outside.
I'm still processing the perceptions others have so graciously given me of myself. I am terrified of their thoughts and yet, in some strange way, overjoyed to face the truth about me.
I said this earlier today, but I feel as though I have learned more about my issues in the past 24 hours than I did in a year or so of on-and-off counseling.
So much to consider.
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