marking time

From the Saturday evening that I collapsed, viola in hand, in the tiny closet-room of my studio apartment, so exhausted I could hardly draw a breath, to the night I prayed for the first time - actually prayed - passed one year and one half, only. Since that night that I prayed, has passed over two years. The one year and a half looms many multiples of time larger. That one year and a half has become mythological. It was a time of rebirth - and even so, after rebirth, I've learned quickly, stagnation is possible. In that year and one half, so much change happened - and so much of what happened before it becomes murky, irrelevant, part of a past life.

And tonight a new, tentative friend told me, "you should do everything you want to do." And I should know that by now. I knew that two years ago, in the time that I started praying. But stagnation happens, and now I am in a gray time, a time not to be remembered. A non-mythological time. But all time could be mythological because it could be lived that vividly. It could be that honest.

And also, a wise and learned advisor told me patiently, over and over, life is a marathon. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. If it were all to be that vivid I'd soon be collapsing once again...