"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience."
Henry Miller
Twenty minutes running along the port and up the hill and I slowed to a walk. That same pain in my knee, subtle, persistent, consistent, taking over. I just wanted to run and all I needed was my own two legs, but sometimes, I don’t have control over even them. It was still dark outside, but morning rush-hour was already beginning, head-lights shining in the darkness. I stopped and waited for a stream of cars to pass before crossing the street. In the early morning grey, it’s especially difficult to trust one’s own eyes and I thought of the hypothetical speeding car I would not see and certainly if I did not see it, it would not see me. And there was the hypothetical collision and hypothetical end…
But as luck would have it, I’m still conscious, alive, aware of the fact that anything could happen at any moment- Making plans, even short-term, provides us merely with a comfortable illusion. In spite of this, I have been trying to come up with my own plan in order to find comfort in the illusion that life is not free-fall. But each time I try to act, I’m suddenly seized by a sensation, “NO! I am not ready! I don’t know enough. I’m not strong enough, not grown-up enough.” Little by little, I’m learning how to respond to myself,
“You will never be ready!” Get over it. Either take a giant leap in the dark, or go home, get married to a nice Jewish boy, have children, convince yourself of a five-year-plan, a ten-year-plan and forget all the rest, forget changing the world and get comfortable… But what I know with more certainty than anything is the alternative to the leap without benefit of experience offers no greater comfort. Unpremeditated knee injuries, accidents, natural disasters, “La Crise”, will have the final say.
I turned around and walked down the hill back to my apartment and the sky had turned from grey to pink, framing the multi-leveled backdrop of Marseille. Blue and white Christmas lights glittered cold and lonely against the sky reminding me of how holiday season felt when I was not alone, though I couldn’t think of what I was being reminded of specifically. When are we truly not alone? Perhaps not so much when we are surrounded by people, but rather, when we have faith in our illusions. Or faith in even less than our illusions… Believing in something we cannot see. Believing in our own ability to persist in the absence of certainty and preparation for what we are about to take on.
