I got up at 5:30 AM and I began searching for anything to do but the most important thing that needed to be done - writing. I made a pot of coffee, poured it into my favorite cup, and began my daily wanderings. Amazingly, I unconsciously wandered through the rooms of my small two-bedroom apartment for hours like a nomadic Berber tribesman searching for water in the Sahara Desert.
As I blindly and unconsciously moved from room to room, I stumbled into the room with my new computer that I purchased to write this memoir. I took a seat in front of the computer monitor and prepared to write, and then I remembered that I needed to re-clean everything in the apartment before I could write one sentence. Why? I felt that it was crucial that I re-cleaned the apartment before I started writing. After all the re-cleaning was done, I took my seat in front of the computer monitor and prepared to write. Before I could type a word, I realized that I needed a three-hour break before I could write. Why? I felt that it was very important to take a three-hour break before writing to avoid taking breaks while I was writing. After my break, even though my body told me it was not hungry, I wandered to the refrigerator and consumed food like a poor half-starved Berber tribesman not a privileged overfeed America. Why? I felt it was important to eat before I started writing and then I wouldn’t have to take snack breaks while I was writing. By this time, the sun was setting outside my window, and I wandered back to my computer, sat down in front of the computer monitor and with a sigh, I began to type but not write. I logged onto important websites that I need to check before I began to write. I watched Netflix movies, replied to emails, updated the PantherCub Website, and ordered marketing supplies for hours. I had replaced apartment wandering with computer wandering. Why? I felt it was important to get everything out of the way before I started writing.
This repetitive behavior of doing everything but writing continued for days and stopped me from writing. Why am I behaving in ways that are contrary to my conscious thoughts, which are to write? My unconscious thoughts must be in more control of my actions than my conscious thoughts because my behavior is contrary to my conscious desires. I need to understand my unconscious motivations to understand why I wander before I write. I don’t know why I wander. However, I do know that I didn’t wander when I wrote the first chapters because I didn't probe deeply into my mind swamp of emotions. Now, the rest of this memoir requires that I venture deeper into my mind swamp, re-experience my past with its accompanying emotional baggage, and accept those experiences as part of my life's journey. My inability to re-experience and accept my emotional baggage has slowed the pace of my writing. It is as if I’m trapped in the quicksand of non-acceptance of what "is." This non-acceptance holds and forces me to wander and ponder life events until I accept those past events as part of my journey. After I accept those events, I will be released from the quicksand to continue writing this memoir.
Why do I wander? I wander to understand who I am and to help me navigate through my unconscious psyche. I wander to escape from my internal feelings. I wander as a solitary being in the vast desert of my mind under a hot sun desperately searching for life sustaining water. To wander is to search. I’m searching for a solution to my inner turmoil that does not require that I sit with it, understand it, experience it, and release it through acceptance of what “was” and “is” my reality. To avoid becoming sedentary, to avoid experiencing past emotional pain, to avoid accepting my reality, I wander unconsciously for miles in a small two-bedroom apartment searching my apartment for something that is not in my apartment but is inside me – stillness, peace, love and self-acceptance.
Teresa Williams (5/10/09)
