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7.7
October 5, 2019

There’s Always Next Time – On Noticing, 4 a.m. & The Voices In Our Heads. {Chapter 1}

*Editor’s Note: This piece is part of a series—lucky you. Head to the author’s profile to continue reading.

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I live in a three story walk up in the heart of a little city in Canada. It’s a historical building – you know the kind – high ceilings, crown moulding, ancient, cracked porcelain fixtures in the bathroom, in the kitchen, wood floors that creak with every step. The radiators hiss, and moan, and have to be bled several times a year. Sometimes, the toilet flushes itself, which startles the dogs, and sends them flying in circles around the room, eyes wide, their frantic barks alerting the entire neighbourhood to the fact of our haunted toilet. 

The window in my studio is narrow. I’ve hung a black iron curtain rod above it, and I’ve draped it with scarves I never wear, some twinkly lights, and a feathered headdress I bought from a vendor at Kaleidoscope Gathering, because though I know I’ll never wear it, I love looking at it. There’s this green paste ‘jewel’ that hangs from the middle of it that catches the light, whatever time of day it is. 

The maple that grows on the street I live on stands right outside that window, like my very own personal sentinel. It inhales all summer long, gathering light like air, and then exhales in fiery reds & yellows in the fall. I swear I can smell it, even through the closed window. 

It’s an evening in October. There’s a hot pink sky. The train is clickety-clacking by so hard, I can feel it in my sit bones. Three starlings are squabbling over something on the rooftop next door. My neighbour is walking his dog with a vengeance that makes me wonder what happened to him today. His fist is clenched around the leash and I can see the veins in his hands from here. His jaw is tight, and his head is down.

I want to knock on the window hard enough for him to hear. I want to point, when he looks up to find me smiling down at him from my window, at the pink sky, at the fire in the tree. “Breathe”, I want to tell him, but I don’t. I step away from the window. I don’t know why. Something about not wanting to catch someone off guard in a bad moment. Something, too, about imposter syndrome, and that ever present voice in my head that asks me “Who do you think you are?”

I have no right to intrude. I have no right to assume the pink sky or the crimson crown on the tree will make any kind of difference at all. What matters to me, I know, might not matter to him, and besides, I might come off as crazy, or lacking in boundaries, or nosy, or…

The voice wins this round. 

***

This voice is one I am intimate with. It wakes me up at Four O’Clock every morning, and reads me a laundry list of ways I am failing. It takes my measure, too, and always snorts a little derisively as it declares me too big for my britches. I know, I tell it, as I try to mash the pillow into some semblance of shape suited for my weary head so I can fall back to sleep. I know. 

Sunrise greets me with another voice, though, and I have to admit I like that one better. 

***

It’s an early morning in October. The kitchen window is twice the width of the one in my studio. I rinse out the French Press while the dogs gambol at my feet. Salem, my Pomsky, keeps pawing at my calves as I walk by. Welts rise. Sookie, my Shih Tzu, would never dare do such a thing, but Salem is new to the pack, so she hasn’t learned the rules. My cat, Sybil, is sitting on the kitchen island, demanding breakfast. 

“Coffee first, lady!” I tell her. 

She reaches out with one black paw, and hooks the flesh on my upper arm with one deft claw. Another welt. I’m allergic to them all, but I’m fiercely devoted, so I deal. 

I set the timer for 7 minutes, and pour boiling water into the French Press to let it brew. I feed the cat, lean back against the kitchen island, and let her rub her head all over my lower back while she purrs. She’s sorry for the claw. She always is. 

Sparrows perch atop the wires across the way, right above the maple. The starlings are late this morning, but that’s probably because it’s drizzling. It’s cloudy to the west of me, and gloomy just over head. To the east, all is a riot of morning coming on in hues of pomegranate, tangerine, and lemon. The sun chases the indigo of night, and night tucks the silver spangled velvet of its tail end between its legs as it scurries away. The train comes next. And then the starlings descend, eleven this time, to squabble on the roof next door. 

There is nothing extraordinary about any of this, except that my noticing makes it so. 

***

My morning voice is kinder, softer, gentler. It reminds me that every little pebble I toss ripples outward. That man beneath my window, walking his dog with a vengeance might very well have felt his heart lift if he’d looked up to see me smiling at him. Or not. Doesn’t matter. My heart would have lifted, and that, I think, is the real trick of being human in times like these. 

Maybe, the voice ruminates as I pour my first cup of coffee, if I stopped worrying so much about what other people might think if I indulged my very first instinct, I’d simply feel better. Maybe, I think, as I add the cream, stir in the sugar, and take my first sip, I’d be a lot less likely to wake up at 4 O’Clock every morning, with that tyrant in my head banging the drum about how much I suck. 

It’s something to think about.

There’s this quote that I love about painting that I’m sure you’ve come across in your travels online. Here it is. 

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”

― Vincent Willem van Gogh

I have it taped to the wall of my studio, and I always sit up a little straighter when I read it. 

It’s easier said than done, though, because the voices in our head seem hell bent on telling us what we can’t do, and the other voices – the soft ones that protest – seem so much easier to dismiss somehow. That’s a powerful thing to grapple with every hour of every day. Exhausting. 

Some mornings, I’m not willing to grapple. This morning, I am, so I grab my journal, plod into the living room, coffee in hand, animals following, and settle in. 

I take dictation, scribbling as my morning voice muses and wonders in purple ink on the ivory page.

“What if I’d applied that quote by Van Gogh to that moment when I stood at the window? What might have happened next?”

These are the questions that get their claws into me. 

The voice continues. I keep scribbling.

“If I’d said to myself as I stood at that window ‘If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot love, you cannot reach out, you cannot knock on the window, you can not risk it’, then by all means risk it.’ what might have happened next?”

What might have happened next?

I tap my pen on the page as I take a sip of coffee. I sit with the question as I watch a lone crow circle the tree across the street. As it lands and perches, one jewel toned crimson leaf falls and swirls to the ground beneath it. The sun is shining the drizzle into submission, and the tree is lit up like someone spent the night applying gold leaf to the tips of every twig and branch. I breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

“You’ll never know!” squawks the tyrant. It has no patience for this stillness.

“Maybe,” my other voice whispers, “but there’s always next time.”

 

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