A Third Place

Posted on May 9, 2005 in Reflections Uncertainty

One asks: Does feeling normal mean to feel slow? To want to drift like a cloud, to have the cloud in your neck and your back? There is a place without suicidal thoughts or feelings of superiority. And I am in that place right now. It is neither unpleasant nor stimulating. It comes close to being boring.

Dante spoke of a third place, called Purgatory where souls are cleansed and slowly detached from their bodies so that they may be ready for Heaven. Those who walked its spiral felt elation as the pain of their pilgrimage removed shame and loathing from their bodies.

I feel no elation nor pain. I look around the room, behold the mugs I’ve left, toys the cats have scattered, and a pair of black shoes at my feet. The orange vest that I wore last winter to protect my heaving chest covers the back of the other office chair. There are too many boxes here. I’m asking who should I be, a question which those in Purgatory never asked. They had a goal. I don’t know where I am going this morning, even though, outside, the clouds have sledded out of the way of the sun and the bright sidewalk sings for me.