Woman Downstairs

After sitting with the book, The Woman Upstairs for a week, I am struck by how much I don't want to re-write that story in my life. People ask how it ends (spoiler alert), and the reality is that it ends with her flying into a rage, the thing the reader is doing from the beginning. The main character Nora is telling a story in hindsight, I suppose a cautionary tail, but it is hard to know why she would want to even relive it. The hard part is wishing the end would be the beginning of the story about the enlightened Nora. I realize this is the author's point, that I am supposed to feel rage and to do something about it, but what? What does the downstairs girl do with herself?

Now in re-connecting with My Name Is Asher Lev, one of my all-time favorites, it begins with a confession of his own journey to making art. In the first paragraph you hear Asher confess that he defies all understanding in his making art. It is inspiring. I want to want something and fight for it and make it happen. Today that looks like me writing on a Saturday morning. I paid a babysitter to come and managed a lot of internal and external conflict around being selfish with my time. I am back here. I have to do this to feel ok with everything else.

So what next. A story. A word. narcissism? commitment? endurance?  NO, or a bigger YES. Art. Artist. Musician. ME? Them? Us? I imagined myself as a famous artist at my show, putting a box over my head or a mask on my face and watching people watch me, like I am empty, because I can do that. I can choose to engage or not and need to work hardest at just listening and not attempting to play a role.

Where is my joy?
How do I rest?
What matters in this moment?
For me, it is listening to the trees and fighting for my relationships with God.