c18c

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Writing competition - 18 - Entry C

HERE AND THERE

In the Stress Management course they sent me on last year, the trainer said to imagine a place and time; a scene in your life when you felt totally relaxed, at peace and all felt well in the world at that particular moment.

You have to avoid letting yourself get too far into a state of Е

        Е.everything's wrong ЕЕ jangling
    int---errup----tions are
stop---ping me ЕЕ..
            from ---doing ---any ---work Е.. nerves shredding
        I can't think clearly anymore Е.
ЕЕЕЕЕ..help! I'm drowing Е can't cope Е
its two steps forward, three back Е
        Е. one breath above the surface, two splutters of water Е
    Е. keep going Е I don't want to keep going Е feeling sorry for myself
            no-one gives me any time to breath

As soon as you start to feel that way, take a moment to put yourself back in that place.

So Е I'm here.

I'm looking out into this scene of beauty where things move gradually in their own time but I'm also a part of it, stood as still and frozen as the glacier. There's no hurry-hurry, no-one waiting, no conflicting deadlines. But I don't even think about what's back there when I'm here, I'm just here. I close my eyes and I sigh, it's a long sigh of contentment, of joy and a feeling of "this is my life starting over again". It's only when I'm back there that the comparison comes.

Everything is still going on around me, but it's like I'm displaced, no longer engaged in what was going wrong there. I remember seeing a movie once where the talented film maker's camera zoned in from a long way away to a close up on one person. The picture zoomed in at a faster accelerating pace until it suddenly stopped dead a few inches in front of their face. The person stared into the camera - a blank, unseeing, transfixed look - for a long moment, and then the camera started revolved around them, slowly at first but picking up speed until it was dizzyingly fast. You just know what the director is signifying by it Е everyone looking in knows you're there physically but you're somewhere else in your mind and the next scene showed where.

In my movie, in my personal zoom-in-revolving-and-escape moment Е I'm here.

When I come back to there, no-one seems to have missed me but there's a light blinking on my phone indicating 3 voicemail messages and my mug has cold tea in it. I close my eyes and sigh again. I open my eyes and look around at all the scattered bodkins of what I need to do next that sent me away in the first place. This time it's a brief shrugging sigh, a kind of full stop to my brief escape and life feels suspended. For now, I'm back where I don't belong, where I don't want to be for a few more hours or days. Perhaps it might be weeks or months before I go again, but I look forward to next time because it always helps.