July 1992: The Journal is a Safe Space

(Another entry from Ritual Year, written July 1992)
Vision.  I always forget, when making visions, that the inner reality is much more important than the outer one.  In some ways it’s much easier to create a vision of a completed work of art, or an improvisational theater group, than to create a vision of being in charge of my life.  What would that look like?  How would that feel?  I’ve no idea, only that I imagine that I would feel more grounded, more relaxed, and not so frightened all the time, not always feeling like I’m doing something wrong.  I would feel like my life belongs to me, like I could do anything I want to with it — then I wonder if there’s anything in my life that I feel like that about: the car? the house?  But they mostly feel like “shoulds”, I should take care of them, keep them clean, etc, not like something I can “do what I want to” with.  But then I want to keep the car in shape so I can go where I want to, keeping up the house creates an environment that supports my inner life.  I suppose the trouble comes when I compare my housekeeping to some impossible, perfectionistic standard — the house is never as clean, or as well organized as I would like, but it’s also true that I’m not willing to spend the amount of time and energy it would take.  That feels OK to me when I know it’s my life, and not OK when I feel Mommy/Daddy’s cold judgemental eye looking over my shoulder.  One thing I do have in my life that I can “do what I want to” with is this journal.  Here I’ve created a space that is completely safe, where I can experiment, and play, and dive as deeply as I want to.  And I never feel the cold eye of Mommy/Daddy anymore, I think I used to but that’s faded away.  I occasionally feel the curious eye of a reader, that’s YOU dear friend, but mostly that makes me feel supported rather than criticized and leads me to be a little self-conscious about my language but otherwise doesn’t affect my writing.  This has happened over the last five years or so, since I’ve developed the rhythm of typing into the computer — that reader that I’m writing for, with the curious eye, is older and wiser and infinitely more merciful than I am now, she brings compassion and understanding to the events I’m now recording for her, she is myself, one year older.
So I’ve done it, here in the journal, and now I want that ease of creativity, that sense of recording the present and my process for an infinitely merciful witness, to extend to the rest of my life, so I can have the same feel about washing dishes, or dancing, or taking the car to have its oil changed, as I do about writing in here.