Doing the drains….

The drains get clogged periodically. This demands a response. It is dirty work and, to be honest, I’d rather not do it. Or think about it. Yet, I find, rather surprisingly, that when I get into it, after quite a lot of faffing around, I actually enjoy it. I want to remove the blockage; get rid of it. expunge it; flush it out – get to the crux of the matter and blow it out……

I’ve been thinking about this job for a few days now. Nothing much works around it – not really an option to practise during a drain clearing operation or, to go for a walk in the sunshine. On the surface of it would be much more appealing  to do either, for appealing is something that drain clearing is, most certainly, not.

Yet, as I get to work, I’m finding a strange obssession gripping my soul…….I am actually begining to relish this task. Might it be an option in the future to create a blockage deliberately so that I can get a ‘fix’ whenever I want one? But that I worry would land me in the planet of the weird and unlovable- both categories that I would not like to find myself in, at least this side of the divide.

As I write, the task is as yet unfinished. I have not had that satisfaction of clearing the impeding mass of unutterable horror that defies conventional chemistry let alone biology. But I find myself gripped with determination in the face of this thing such that it becomes a battle between an unseen ever unknowable foe and myself, who only several hours ago had designs on a rehearsal for an upcoming recital and only last night after giving several lessons in the awareness expanding discipline of Alexander Technique gave in to the delight of gentle imbibing – now finds his horizons in the bowels of the earth wrestling with the  detritus of life lived.

Perhaps it is this unconscious clearing that is the lever for such an unblocking- a metaphor for essential therapy. Just one way, perhaps, and not without rewards, of coming to terms with the past before it engulfs and constipates future plans

Advertisement