I can’t start at the beginning. I can’t even start to explain where I’m at in this present moment.
Incongruent is the word that came to me as I sat on this bench with Ernest the dog sitting near me.
Partially wet, his lower half, from wading into water that I’m not sure if he was allowed into or not. Wading into the water that I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to go in, and told him half heartedly to get out of. And that he then half heartedly listened to. But we’re both whole heartedly living and calling it an adventure – vagabonding is the term that I've been saying.
I like words and phrases that have multiple meanings and vagabonding is certainly that. I also seem to call in and gravitate towards experiences with multiple meanings. Or is it that everything has multiple meanings if one thinks long enough about them? I certainly am a long enough thinker.
But with vagabonding, staying in places with beings with whom I want to bond from anywhere between one day to two month stretches, sometimes there doesn't seem to be time for long enough thinking, especially long enough thinking before taking action. Or long enough seems to have a different meaning.
No, it's not a different meaning, it’s an additional one. Long can mean a month and 18 years and it can mean a tiring evening in the driveway cleaning a dog who just got sprayed by a skunk.
But back to the word incongruent. That's how it's been feeling lately for me. My ego/mind has been frantically searching for patterns, grasping for routine and predictability. I can give it a morning-ish walk with the dog. I can give it food and water. That's about all that feels routine at the moment.
Incoherence is a similar word that comes to me after that bench sit. Incoherence is found within the whys of my day to day. Why am I choosing this over that? This activity or that work task? During in-the-dump moments the why-why-why-ego-mind starts attacking the whole vagabonding I'm in the midst of. Starts attacking this breaking apart I'm in. Starts going after why am I choosing to put the yoga mat upstairs instead of downstairs? Why the computer monitor on this table and not the other one? Why am I turning that lamp on instead of the other one?
Oh my. Oh my. It all feels too much in those moments.
Though right now it feels good to be sitting with the dog resting nearby. The dog whose nose is irritated and whose tummy has been off for too long. But we're managing and maybe it doesn't matter the why of it all. Or maybe the why is important, yes it truly is, but the why had its moment when I was making preparations for this time and now that I'm in it, it's about simply, simply (please can I make it simple!) being in it.
I can see why my ego/mind wants to get to the heart of the matter, the why of it all, into the nitty gritty and the big and all encompassing.
Synonyms I'm finding on wordhippo.com for incongruent:
...mussy, rambling, confused, anarchic, shifting, in a mess, mystifying, incomprehensible, oddball, illogical.
And one definition of incoherence:
A break in or lack of continuity
This ego/mind of mine sure has a field day with the illogical things and breaking up of patterns I've been getting up to. So mussy I am right now. hah
I've agreed to and formed this vagabonding adventure intentionally to have a break from what was my regular, to break off from a continuous path that I was on.
This makes sense. This incoherence, it makes sense. This being in a mess makes sense.
I've been wanting to write to you, to connect as I'm making my way around vagabonding. I've been holding off because I've been wanting to make sense of things before bringing you in. I've been wanting to bring coherence to a time that feels quite simply incoherent.
Coherence takes effort and work that I don't have the capacity for, nor the desire for when I am honest with myself. I can be such a pro at explaining myself to others, explaining myself to myself. I recognize that explanation and coherence are actually worlds apart but there is a similar thread of trying to make sense of something when one is too early, too deep, too mussy, too in-process.
I've wondered if it's too early too to reach out to you. "I should just be in this incoherent muss and then write about it after the fact." There seems to be value in this sharing after the fact. Sharing once it's complete. But that doesn't sound all that fun... :-) And that doesn't seem like the way of the vagabonder.
What sounds fun, and the way of the vagabonder, is simply letting myself feel/be incoherent, making seemingly incongruent moves, and reaching out, inviting in, and being invited in by who resonates along the way.
So, hi, I'm a bit of a muss right now. I'll be vagabonding and writing about my incongruent feeling incoherence. Want to ride along and be with me in the midst of it?
Maybe I'll arrive in your inbox again next Friday?
bye for now, fellow nature change being.