Repressed Memories and Writing

I was digging through my old junk yesterday and I came upon an old poem that I had written in 1978 and didn't remember ever having written. This poem would have been written during my early college days. Now you are probably sitting there thinking, gee, I have tons of old crap sitting in my garage, what's up with this guy. Well, give me a chance to explain.

You see, there are many transitions in life that can be somewhat traumatic. Leaving home and going to college, especially if you liked your home, can be especially traumatic. What that means is that you are transitioning to a time in your life where for several years, your environment maybe not be totally under your control, ever. Some people embrace this chaos and find it exhilarating. For some of us gifted people, what this means is that your emotional OE is going to be accosted nonstop. There is no place that you can withdraw into in absolute secure solitude to allow that OE to cool down a bit and your thoughts to withdraw to within yourself, totally oblivious of the world, for that full mind recharge. And it is oh so much more fun if at the time, you are gifted but don't know it.

In that case, it means you think you are friggin going nuts. It's like never sleeping and trying to walk about in the world with that lifestyle. Those hallucinations start to get to you. Likewise, not allowing your emotional OE to cool off and recharge, just causes some pretty strange, inexplicable things to happen to you. Your brain, in that case, starts to go into battle mode and, well, your intelligence goes down and down and down until you feel like you are some reactive creature that lives under a rock. Now if you are unaware you are gifted, never heard of an OE, the game becomes oh so much more fun. You feel like some stroke victim, where every day a little more of your brain, a little more of you, just simply dies. And as each bit of you goes, you struggle to reorganize your thinking and your life, to cope with what's left, never understanding why this is happening.

Unfortunately, as I now know, what's happening is that you are putting bits of you away to protect it. You break off another piece and throw it in the lock box. The trouble is that your mind isn't a computer. It's not like you can just break off the OE part of your mind. Everything, even things unrelated to what's going on, get stuffed in that box.

So now I will take you back to that dusty old poem I dug out, or another name for it, the lock box key. I picked up that poem and looked at it. I read it. I know I must have written this. But it sounds like someone else wrote it. I read it again. What is this saying? I can't hardly understand the words. I read again and again and again, trying to understand what it said. It evokes a feeling, I mean that is what a poem is supposed to do, give you a feeling and a picture in your mind. But this feeling was so weird. I don't think that's the feeling these words are supposed to invoke. I remember what is was like, writing at the beginning of college, before I put it down, thinking this is not what I am supposed to be doing. I'm having so much trouble focusing on my studies, my grades keep getting worse and worse to the point of being an extreme embarrassment to me -- I feel so stupid. I remember, I'm not sure I really wanted to.

After reading enough times, with that feeling of stupidity that I used to have, I finally felt like I had its meaning. I put the poem back in the folder, and quietly went back to editing on my book. I'm drowning in edits from the professional editor that need to get done. Where was my brain when I wrote this chapter. Okay, focus. Hmm, the editor says I need to write some more here, let me add some. What's there looks pretty brain dead. I don't know how many times I passed over this part editing it. I guess that is why you get a professional editor. I start to write the insertion. After some time, I stop and read back what I wrote. Who wrote this? It sounds so different to what I normally write. Wherever this is coming from, I like it. I want to keep writing like that!

I'm going to share my key now. I realize that it's no great literary work. But it is what it is, a simple key.

The Musician

Tedious tediocity as the vibrations of some
Lost thought glimmer upon the strings of
Perception, an image of the sender and of
Some receiver yet unseen.
A bondage they become with tomorrow, for
Ears do not acknowledge time, only meaning,
A meaning which gives flavor and color,
But leaves little texture upon the mind.

Intent, too, weaves through these vibrations,
Stopping short of recognition, awaiting other
Ripples to untangle its entwined character.
Its character is one of deception or one of
Belief, the seeker knowing of neither
Entanglement, only the patience in trying
To understand.
Intent will also have its patience, waiting
Secretly for the time of its becoming.

Tedious tediocity, the musician
Illuminates the medium of his woven
Spirit, sending the light of mind in glimmering
Vibration, realizing the thought forgotten in
The perception of his light.


©Copyright 1978 by Rusty Biesele, All Rights Reserved.