In a grey zone

Arriving early to write, out of the rain, the doors are locked.  The sign turned off.  I wander down the block, suddenly church bells ring out, a call to worship.  (Once again, the line between sacred and profane wavering, hardly even present.)  I follow, like I often do.  Don't go in, sit on the steps on the side.  Write.  People hurriedly pass by me, saying "hello."  I feel transient.  I'm not Catholic, but sometimes, I go in anyway.  Someone asked recently if there was something that stayed with people after pilgrimage...I love the sound of the bells; the smell of the incense; the sight of the smoke.  It makes me feel close to something.  In Spain, if I could, I went to mass daily, sometimes more than daily.  Sometimes I wanted to be blessed, and sometimes I was.  Sometimes I wanted to give thanks for my ability to be there, for being there, for shelter.  For a trickster that answered me literally, and getting to live through that answer, and surviving it.  Sometimes I wanted to feel the mystery of history (good or bad, generally a tangled web of both) wash over me...in the end, all conspiring, and I was somehow sitting there in that moment.  Whatever someone else might believe, what doctrine they adhere to, whether I agree or believe or not, because I went, as a consequence of that, something deep inside me, that I couldn't necessarily have put a finger on, was healed, and I am grateful.

And then, in a dark bar, on a rainy Sunday, once again, an answer I didn't realize I was asking for, until I stopped holding my breath.  And then later in the week, I thought, if I could explain to you what happened, and then I didn't need to, and I knew something that was true.  True about me, without self-judgment or shame, just a light-bulb lighting up in my head, accepting my own responsibility.  Suddenly free.  Nothing to keep me tied there.

(And while writing the post on Friday, I was given a second chance to reconsider the conservatory, enough had changed that might sway my decision.  Curiously leaning even more heavily to "no" and I can't really explain that.  It would be good for me, and I can be stubborn, sticking with a decision once I've made it...so, will try to reconsider it.)

As far as the art project goes, need to re-shoot the photo, not quite as I remember it.  This might be harder than I originally thought.  I want to work off of impulse, even if it comes off as trite.  I want to listen to the first impulse more, and not over think everything to death, to the point of inertia.  That's a good enough reason to do it.

I'm stuck in a reverie mode. And it's almost too hot to stay inside now.  There should be cheap taco Sundays. (Or housemates that clean the kitchen.)