For having spent the morning
For having spent the morning in such an extreme of emotion (ugsome word, but what else am I going to call it) I spent the afternoon wandering through the town with a lighter and more solid (parse that!) feeling than I had felt for some time. I was refreshed. My faith in travel was restored. I wasn’t tired any more, and I don’t mean my feet, either.
In large part, I mused, delighting in the arrangement of the streets and stairs, no two surfaces on one level, part of what this story is about is fear. It’s about my education through fear - I can’t really say the end of fear, or the defeat of fear, or even the facing of fear. But it doesn’t end in fear - what shall I call then? The answering of fear, perhaps. I do not know how I will be afraid again, but if I am will not fight it. I think it is like pain in that respect: one cannot conquer it by fighting it, but merely by being. If one declares it an enemy, it might very well be stronger than you. But if one declares nothing and merely exists, then that will remain unchanged.
Dear me! I seem to be growing very Zen.
hai.
October 29th, 2002 at 10:59 pm