“I’m not sure how to examine my soul. I tried to do it by looking in the mirror but it made me feel all queer when I looked for too long. Hav you ever done that? Looked in the mirror and felt all queer?”
Elizabeth George’s character, Hadiyyah, age 8, in Playing for the Ashes
2
I most often examine my soul while looking at my toes.
I’m sitting, on a sofa, the floor, a chair with a footstool, a picnic blanket by the river, legs stretched out in front of me, notebook in my lap. I’m writing — and you’d think that I’d be examining my soul on the page, but no. The true introspection happens when the pen stops moving and I lift my gaze from the page to my toes. Then, the thought, the brief insight, the even briefer, more fragile truth.
On the page, I create my reality, craft and control the story.
Starting at my toes between paragraphs and sentences, I just am.
Most of the time, it’s easier to write.
3
I don’t mean that I lie when I write. But I choose: I choose what to tell, what to omit. Where to assign meaning. Where to deny it.
It’s not therapy but it is a fantastic coping technique.
4
“I’m fine with it and actually, it feels good so long as I don’t think about it too much.”
Me, to you, explaining that not very important thing that doesn’t bother me at all
5
I can write myself into peace. Or into despair, anger.
Most of the time, I choose to write myself into peace.
Sometimes, I let myself write the pain. But not too often.
It doesn’t feel good, you see. So why would I want to choose that?
6
Have I ever told you about my theory that nothing actually exists until someone imagines it? Like, there were no rainbows — or black holes — until a human imagined them them. And then — presto.
The spectrum of light, including indigo.
(Seriously, how take is the colour indigo? Fake.)
Her: Problem: Who imagined the humans?
Jane: Dumb question. The demiurge, obviously.
7
Sometimes, my love and I watch Esoterica together — a vlog about religion, magic and alchemy, hosted by a Jewish scholar — married to a rabbi — who is somehow able to fulfill his curiosity about all things esoteric without losing his faith.
Sometimes, I envy him.
Other times, I think he’s a liar.
8
I look at my toes, but there’s nothing there. This disturbs me; I go back to the page.
9
I think maybe what’s happened is my soul is on vacation. That’s why I can’t find it right now now.
Don’t worry. It will come back.
It usually does.
10
The dog and cat are chilling with me on the balcony. The morning sun feels good on my skin. A human I love sleeps upstairs. A few blocks away, my eldest son is probably still sleeping too, re overing from a 10-day adventure in British Columbia with childhood friends. Some 1000 kilometres across the mountains, the neglected middle child has finished her spring semester and is enjoying a visit from her dad and her youngest sibling.
Maybe there’s a reason my soul is not in my toes.
I close my eyes and let my thoughts touch the tendrils of the souls I love, near and far.
Nothing By The Book 