Taoists say: Nothing is created without opposing forces, or something like that.
These are both pairs of Paris shoes. Oh, look at that,
'p-a-i-r-s' and 'P-a-r-i-s' have the same letters.
The black pair I bought in Paris in 2003 when Don and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. The trekkers I bought for Paris in 2006 when I stomped around with my camera for a week alone to celebrate my 50th birthday.
I like the flirty appeal of pointy toes and high heels, and I like the comfort of round toes and arch supported flat ones. Big cities pull me in, and so do mountains. The cool feel of smooth white sheets in a hotel is a luxury I love, but I also relish the warm flannel of a sleeping bag in a tent. Dressing up fancy for the symphony is something to look forward to, but let me wear my thick ugly soft grey robe on the couch with my laptop every morning. I appreciate fashion for its beauty, but I hate it for its consumerism and planned obsolescence. I live to communicate with people, but I also love to be alone with my thoughts, books, a pen and a notebook. Don and I get a big kick out of chickens, but Sherwood Anderson's narrator in 'The Egg' would have liked to kick them.
I'm learning to tolerate my own discrepancies, and those of others, and also how their opinions might conflict with my own. I'm trying to balance skepticism with open-mindedness. I want to recognize that I am a sometimes chaotic mess of contrary opinions and perspectives, and so is almost everyone else. I resist fitting into categories. I no longer want to fix everything, or to find self worth in what I accomplish or in how people view me. I'm learning to be suspicious of my biases, and not treat them as good or bad, right or wrong.
Tolerance is one thing, and it's good I think. Yet it sounds pretty passive. What if these tensions and opposing forces actually create something new and better? Maybe allowing them to co-exist is the first step. Looking for ways to carve out new territory from there is maybe the next.
Please don't ask me what this means for two pair of Paris shoes. I haven't got a clue. Maybe you do.
Anyway, I do know one new thing that's been created out of seemingly opposing forces. I used to write poetry. When the photography bug bit me, poetry took a back seat, I had no energy for it. I'd open my notebook and sit staring out the window, but nothing would come - except photos that wanted to be taken. So my notebook sat in a pile under the camera bag. Suddenly last month it occurred to me (after going to the county fair and taking pictures) that the photographs themselves could be prompts for writing. Voila! The two 'opposing' forces came together like magic.
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