a transcript of a vision
i had a vision that i was walking through a field. the grass was thick and matted under my feet. i suddenly realized my socks were getting wet through my shoes, and i looked down to see i had been walking through a puddle, invisible by the strange, thick grass that grew through it. the unusually heavy rain had over-saturated the ground and the water was now congregating on the surface, forming this puddle. i looked behind me but couldn’t tell where it had started… in fact, i only realized there was a puddle at all because the water had finally seeped through my shoes into my socks, and the cold and wet stung my skin.
i didn’t (and couldn’t) know which way to go to get out because i didn’t (and couldn’t) know where the puddle started or ended. in this moment, it felt easy to trust what my gut was telling me– the best way out is through.
so i kept going, knowing it was just a field and couldn’t get dangerously deep anyway. i trudged through the deepening muck, the wet climbing up my ankles. as it reached my shins, i paused… but it didn’t make sense to turn back at that point, i was already wet. and it couldn’t be much more of this before it evened out and i could continue my walk. but as the depth reached my knees, and eventually my thighs, i began to feel despair. i was tired, and i was cold, and i had set out on this journey alone and so now found myself… alone.
sitting down felt silly. i thought i should preserve the dry parts of me as much as possible, minimize the impact of this experience, to maybe preserve a part of me, leave it untouched. but as i stood there, the wearier i grew. i abandoned hope of self-preservation and sat down, the cold and wet now reaching my neck. and i wailed.
i wailed and wailed until i grew wearing of wailing and the wailing became weeping.
i could have let myself drown. the rain had been heavy and the water was deep enough that i could have let myself drown. but the grass wound together and in its winding it was strong and buoyant, and it offered to hold me up instead… if i wanted.
choices. i had choices. and then i wept more because i was wet and i was cold and i now had to choose. only i didn’t know how to choose! the immediate relief of drowning (would that be considered lazy?), the unknowable journey of continuing on (noble, if i made it), the endless suffering of staying put (no one would know). i rolled in place, an attempt at continuing my journey from the frightened, foggy place i found myself. i moved. maybe forward, maybe backward, it was impossible to tell. i obsessively thought about the steps i took that got me to this place, an attempt to find and correct the error. i had decided to let myself drown, only something wouldn't let me. i had decided to stay put, only to decide to move forward after all.
i wept myself through this loop over and over until i became so entangled in the grass and the roots that braided and wound below the visible surface that i couldn’t stand up even after i decided i wanted to, and that i wanted to just get up and leave this silly vision– a dream of my own creation.
so i began to crawl. detangling each arm and each leg for each small movement. and i became intimate with the tangles, understanding the maps they drew and how and why they drew me in. deeper i crawled until i was swimming in the reeds, losing sight of the ground entirely and floating with only my own movements and the support from the braided maps beneath me. and i kept on until i found the ground, again.
and again, began to crawl.
i’m still crawling.
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this transcription comes from a vision i had on april 13, 2024 in my kitchen nook. on instagram, i shared it left me wondering: will i (we) be crawling forever? is this the essence of life on earth? how will i (you) get upright again, to take a step forward (again) (for the first time)?
