Messages From Carrie
Freefalling and Windows in the Woods
October 4th, 2007
It was five am on a Monday morning. I didn’t know into what day or location I was awakening. This often will happen to me in times of intensive travel for my work as a songwriter and workshop facilitator. But this was the first time it had ever happened at home. Usually I will awaken in hotel rooms feeling as if I am freefalling and disoriented, not sure of what town or city I’ve been sleeping. On hard mornings I feel a vague panic or bewilderment. On good mornings I am floating unafraid, and content to have no clue to where I am. I don’t know what this means, but it is interesting to occasionally be alright with the fact that even the light coming in through the curtains is without location and completely mysterious. I have wondered if perhaps this is what it might feel like to be very old or slipping into dementia. It is a sobering thought to imagine the alternating calm and panic of being nowhere but here, when here is an undefined present without history or memory. When I travel intensely for a period of time, I can feel the tether between myself and my life at home grow stretched and thin. All that grounds me becomes like a dream somewhere and I’m very much in the now. I go from one intense experience to another, meeting people and drinking in places, punctuated by times of deep aloneness with my own thoughts. The good part is that I must learn to ground completely in my spiritual center, because everything physical is in motion. I must also learn how to sit in those alone times with all that is bothering me or without resolution with a certain gracefulness. The bad part is the tethers to my life, relationships and home begin to feel frayed and in danger of unraveling. It is an odd combination of alternating disconnection and immersion, letting go and holding fast.
I remember a time many years ago when my husband, Robert, was traveling with me. I awoke in a sunlit room in an art deco home. I didn’t know where or even when I was emerging into the world, but I knew that Robert was there beside me. At that moment the world was freefalling and formless, but there in that sunlit room, in the center of right now, I was curled around a tall man with dark thick hair that I knew I loved. I remember leaning into his sleeping side, putting my head on his wide shoulder, sighing with the relief of feeling known and unalone in the center of a dissolved world. All was awash with light and without history, but this much I knew was true; I was sleeping with my love, he was breathing deeply, the sunlight was new and opening up the corners of the room, and that this felt like happiness. It was a glowing moment of connection that I imagine he was never aware of having with me.
But five o’clock Monday morning I awoke at home. Robert had risen before dawn and left for an early meeting in another town. He had left the porch light on and its pale luminescence was glowing through the gauzy maroon curtains. My bedroom has two tall windows, one that faces the front porch, and another that faces out into the side garden, bushes and woods beyond. . It was early enough that the morning that the sky was still dark, and I awoke with that now familiar freefalling feeling. Slowly I began to take in my surroundings, remembering and settling back into a place my heart knew as home. As I emerged into a thick consciousness I gazed out the side window into the bushes, leaves garden and woods. Due to a trick of light and reflection my eyes landed on what appeared to be a window situated firmly in the bushes along side the house. The illusion was so clear and complete that I had to sit up in bed to be sure of what I was seeing. I moved my head from side to side to see if it would disappear as I shifted my position. But the reflection and image was so defined it didn’t go away at different angles. I laid my head back on the pillow and gazed at that reflected window. It had the presence and appearance of an opening hanging in space, a tear in the veil between the worlds. Sometimes I have experienced thin places, places that seem to be closer to all that ache and awe and mystery. But this was a window to look between, to obtain a glimpse of something we’ve always sensed in our daily lives but rarely seen even in our peripheral vision. I sat up again and there it was. I lay back down and there it stayed. I could not see through this reflection to the bushes and trees. I could only see this hard-edged window of light and illusion. I could not see eternity, but it felt so close to being able to do so.
Eventually I fell back asleep, and when I woke again I knew where I had been sleeping. I wasn’t free falling or disoriented. I was home. I immediately looked for that unearthly window firmly situated in the wood and leaves, but the reflection was gone, and with the morning light the bridge had disappeared. I didn’t know whether to be sad that a fleeting opportunity had passed, or grateful to have glimpsed something magical even from the corner my eye.