Equilibrium
I’m out of balance. I always have been.
I’m seeking balance. I always have been.
My life is and always has been a balancing act. I perform on a stage of my own design, and sometimes the designs of others. I work with sets and props as they come to me, and keep performing until my closing curtain. My venue is wherever I am.
In my act are assistants of all measure. Some are actors, some set and costume designers, and some aid in production. An audience comes and goes, observing my performances. Sometimes they’re applauding, critiquing, hissing, booing, or indifferent. And sometimes the auditorium is empty.
My balancing act is not my choice of entertainment. I would rather have a peaceful existence of tranquility and bliss. Perhaps a small group of singers or an easy dance of harmony. But this is impossible since objects and people and calamity are thrust onto my stage in varying degrees, disrupting what calm had existed and replacing it with chaos. If I try to exit stage left, I appear stage right, and vice versa. If I attempt to join the crowd in front of me, I am thrust back into the lights. If I try to hide behind my fellow performers, they cooperate for a time and then reveal me with a giant ta-da! from the orchestral pit. If I attempt to cower behind a set piece, spotlights illuminate my position from all directions until I admit my futility and return to the performance.
The balance of my act is taking this chaos and turning it back into a performance of equilibrium. At any time, I could be juggling one insignificant thing, or a myriad of potential catastrophes. Within my juggling actions are objects of any size, shape or danger. On one hand could be the lightest and softest white dove and on the other a buzzing chainsaw. Sometimes what I perceive to be a comfortable juggling ball conceals a lit wick from my sight. As I reach the balance necessary to keep the juggling objects from crashing into me or detonating around me, oftentimes more objects are thrust in my direction, increasing the difficulty of my existence. Though I have my fellows around me with hands outreached, most will ultimately cower from taking hold of my up-in-the-air responsibilities and burdens. I can’t say that I blame them, but then again, maybe I can.
Because my act is a balancing act, I scramble to pick up the broken pieces and make some semblance of order. I adjust my costumes and gather my fellows to hatch plans and develop schemes to make mess into magic, all the while teetering to and fro in my performance. At one point in my act, I may dress as a VIP, and in another a clown. My costumes are great in number and seem to mask my inability to perform as advertised. The billboard at my front door reads Funtastic!, but the F had long since been scratched out by some dissatisfied patron.
Far too often my act becomes moment to moment. Despite my best laid plans something always seems to happen that derails my attempts at a perfect and complete finish. The standing ovation that would follow it, with flowers and gold coins tossed in my general direction, fails to happen.
Occasionally those joining me on stage are not there to assist me. They smash my sets and stomp my props and tear up my scripts then disappear to the darkness off stage. Some seem to champion me for a time, smiling and clapping and patting me on the back, until my actions show the shortcomings of my talents and the futility of my efforts. My things come crashing down around my in a calamity of epic proportions, spilling, concussing, staining and deafening the throng. Suddenly those I relied on to stay with me follow other acts to other stages and I am alone under a limelight of sour miscontent. I chew on the green rind of envy and resentment. No worries, though, I can always find a stranger or two to enable my derailment.
The act was not always so bad. In the beginning of it all I had a grasp on keeping things scripted. Sure, there were times of applause and times of questioning murmur offstage in any direction. I held confidence that despite a shortcoming here or there, I kept the cast and audience entertained. There was the applause I craved and most times the arena gave me healthy doses of validation and encouragement. I was there to perform for their pleasure, wasn’t I? Under that view and review, I just knew I had to develop ever more clever displays of talent and action, bordering on the excessive and approaching the dangerous. I held and threw any number of objects skyward, keeping each afloat as the snare drum rattled and the rim shot clattered from the pit. The horns and strings would whine and blast in a crescendo that I wished would never end.
When things began to go bad it was the smallest of mishaps. One small crash led to another, then a misstep followed by a failed grab and a misfortune in timing. Soon all my semblance of control became the chaos of being out of control, yet I refused to admit it. I had established a façade of belief that when things were going well there was no reason for them to not go well. I was innocent of circumstances and repercussions and lacked the experience to know how to re-act my act.
Ultimately my bumbling and fumbling became grasping at air, trying to find something there to hold onto. My hilarity brought roars of laughter and applause, but when the vaudeville grew stale and I sat in a mess of my own undoing, a cheerful audience turned sublime and slowly but surely silhouettes began exiting the theater.
Looking around for help, I get a hand up from a few kind souls on either side of me. They clear out as much of my mess from around me as possible and I rise to begin my act again. Outside of our small circle of disrepair, I see others that I had imagined would be there for me in my moments of crisis. Instead, they shuffle their feet and look away, kicking at a broken piece of my folly, and wringing their hands in impatience and wonder at what my next scene might produce. I hear murmurs of rumors of clamor inside and outside of me. I realize I no longer want to be here. I loved my act and loath my act all at the same time. Whomever I am and whatever this show has become is not what I expected. People I called friends stand around me with fingers pointed in my direction. Some are laughing and some are crying and some just look on in quiet indignation. No one is helping me up, and if they are, I either resist their intentions or twirl in the spin of denial.
I scramble for places to hide but they keep finding me. The spotlight chases me incessantly. I hide behind sets and objects on stage and curl up in a ball facing away from everything. I finally spy an empty crate and heave it over, then revel in the isolation of my existence. I can see shadows moving about through the rough-hewn splintery slats that surround me. There is sanctuary and relief here. Or maybe it’s the elimination of discomfort out there. Whatever it is, the act is over. Fini. The end.
I have stayed here for a long time. I avoid the sounds and shadows of the outside world because they cause me pain. Just as I think it’s safe to gather up the courage to venture out again, something reminds me of why I’m here. It could be the muffled noise of the auditorium, or a glimpse of the mess through the cracks in my sarcophagus of concealment. I detest even the thought of revealing myself, lest my discovery thrust me back into that pathetic disaster that is still too close to my memory. At least in here I forget. I forget how it felt to be frustrated and angry and humiliated. The resentments I am fond of playing over and over in my mind lose their volume in here. I find I have no yearning to interact with people or things or life for that matter. I only wish to remain comfortably numb in my closed off world.
Occasionally I will peek through the cracks to the sound of a noise outside my escape room. It’s only the cleanup crew. They’re ever searching for evidence of my dirt so they can scrape it up and throw it away. Good riddance, I say. I don’t want to even imagine that life anymore. The less I think about it, the better. It’s safer this way. So here I crouch in my uncomfortable end-game.
I hear my name being called from time to time, then more frequently. Sometimes it’s silent for days and then I hear it again. At first, I assume it’s some idiot stage manager or a disgruntled participant wanting some money or my soul, whichever is worth more. But the voice does sound familiar. I strain to catch sight of a figure moving in the shadows of the darkened theater and bump my crate with my head with a painful cry. Then footsteps toward me. Slowly my hovel is tilted, and a familiar face looks into mine. I yell “NO!” and slam the box down. I can barely make out feet shuffling there expectantly, then they walk off to the distance: out of sight, out of mind. I sigh in relief. I don’t need the pain of familiarity, reminding me of my failures. All I need is the sedation and placation of the nothingness I’ve come to cherish. Everything outside of here can go to hell.
The lights begin to turn on in the arena, one by one increasing in lumens all around me. I can tell because the brightness pierces my shell through cracks and empty coffin nail holes, pricking at my skin with shafts of dust filled brightness. Then footsteps again, only this time it’s many. The boots stomp and reverberate throughout the stage floor with march step authority. I hear them surround my sarcophagus, and I grip the sides with white knuckles and claws. Without warning, my cover is ripped from my grip and thrust into the distance, and I am curled up there in moaning agony as the light pierces my reddened eyes and violates the barriers of my soul.
Gentle hands and cradling arms pick me up from my jumbled formula of chaos, and move me to the basic comforts of bed, pillow and blanket. The light is dimmed to suit my delirious tremors. I am fed though I resist sustenance, and I am given cool water though it makes me sick to my stomach. I try to sleep but my dreams are foul and explosive, and at the very hint of rest I am shaken back to my grim reality with shockwaves of pain and fear and despair.
For the first time in a long time, I fear death.
Death is near. I can feel it breathing at my neck and wrenching at every nerve in my body. My body is shaking and tremoring in bouts of cold sweat and hot dryness. My guts wrench as I search for my sanctuary. I need it so badly to take away this pain and all of the pains of my existence. Just a moment of escape from this pathetic hell would do wonders for me. I tell myself that soon I will find it again and all will be made right in my world.
My captors assure me they are my confidantes, but they don’t allow me to leave. They speak to me in gentle tones and remind me that my act was just that, an act. They bring from me a spark of understanding that I was embroiled in uncontrollable chaos and the way out of that was not hiding from it. They gently challenge me to face what amount of it I can and learn from it. I balk at the absurdity.
Looking around me I find little substance to consume. I begin to hunger for more than food, but also for something to remind me of my purpose. With increasing counsel, I find myself seeking a higher purpose than the calamities of my past, or the loneliness of my present. With my healing and dispelling of poisonous thoughts I come to terms with giving up my insistence on being the absolute master of all I survey. There is something greater than me that I haven’t touched in a long time. It may be God, it may be love, or it may be the real that is locked inside of me. Or it may be all three of these elements – three in one manifest.
Soon I am allowed to leave. I have guides that both worry and encourage me forward. I re-discover my old theater. It’s dark now. Dust covers everything and spiders have taken up residence in the corners and around the piles of debris that remain. It’s cleaning time.
With help from friends new and old, and with time and patience, we set to it. Each shattered piece of my past is brought to bear. Some are reassembled, observed and then disassembled again. Some are categorized by color, type or function, and then summarily boxed up for later review. With aid from my fellows, we tackle the nature of each and make a fundamental change in them. What was a burdensome catastrophe becomes a method to avoid or improve on. Our goal is to eliminate all of the things that led to hiding in the crate, and to create a vision for my future to keep those things from happening again. At the same time a new vision for what my next production will be is in play.
These days, I visit the stage and work with my friends to develop my vision of how I would like my life to be. The lessons of the past lie in my dedication to the future. I no longer hide from or avoid the past but use it as one of my tools to build my vision and further visions into a life of my design.
My theater is clean, but I am involved in its maintenance. My audience is small, but they all have a stake in my play. My production is simplified but exemplifies my desire to be who I want to be. My outlook is keen, and I dance on the stage with happiness, fulfillment and validation, weathering the missteps in the rave.
I’m seeking balance. I always have been.
I can maintain balance. I always could.