A personal experience I don't know where to go with..., page 1

While sitting alone today, washing away my sins, an excited little girl approached me. In her arms were cradled a bunch of apples which she dropped in a failed attempt to pick one out. "I have apples," she proclaimed, "would you like one?"

For some reason, this girl terrified me. Something like a snake coming to tempt me in my garden.

"No," I replied, "but, thank you."

After gathering up most of the fallen offerings into her arms she stopped a second staring at one last apple that she could not manage to retrieve. Then, for another second, she stared back at me, with a friendly smile, before running off with her spoils. I imagine to wherever it was from which she had come.

Even though I had refused the apple, she had still left that last one with me and I could not help but to stare at it. Realizing my initial fear, the garden I had been sitting in quickly became crowded with vines and weeds and brush and trees and flowers and grasses and thickets and that damned fruit sitting at the center of it all, fixating me.

Did she even realize that by her very appearance in my field of vision, and by the offering of one of her obviously treasured possessions, she had taken away something very precious to me? Did she understand that by giving, taking is necessary? Was what she had taken from me equal in value to what I had been given?

It didn't seem so to me. Yet, how could I be angry at this young girl who surely had no idea of what she had taken in that moment? Why didn't I have a choice in the transaction? Did my simple presence there somehow invite this experience?

How could I answer any of these questions without being able to get back to where I was before it occurred?

Thank God for alarm clocks. Their loud, annoying screeches never fail to wake me up.

Leaving the apple where it was, I went to go get my laundry out of the washing machines.

Fortunately for me only one of the three washers I had filled with my barriers-of-life's-influences had completed it's cycle.

Now if only I could remember the questions that had been running through my mind only a moment ago, maybe I could prevent such a lapse from ever happening again. There were questions. They left a hole in the whole of me like the blank space under an essay question.

And the gift of innocence that approached me as if it would burn my very soul, thrown down and away from me in fear; could I find it again? What was to be gained from it if I did? Or lost?

The fear. That is what crowded my garden and clouded my mind, making me to lose my self and become lost in the maze life is so quick to provide anyone not wholly dedicated to their path.

Had I never read the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden would this fear have existed in me at all? Would I still have become entangled in this simple encounter?

If it had been, say, an old man passing by and he stopped to ask for a cigarette, would it have had the same effect? I believe so.

A fear, an annoyance, an uneasiness, anger, loathing, all such things of this sort I believe would have made me lose all sight of my goal.

The fear in this particular instance is what confuses me. This is an episode in which I feel I should have felt gratitude for the offer and a joy in seeing this child so happy and giving. It was this pre-existing notion within my mind that associated her with a story to which she had no connection and likely no knowledge of whatsoever.

This further clears this up for me, it was not the fear after all. It was the association. Had I actually been fully involved in and aware of my surroundings I would have seen her just as she was without the intentions ascribed to her by my inner considerings/associations.

It was all imagined. No reality existed for me in that experience, nor did it prior to that experience.

Is it the same now? Am I sitting here in this laundromat seeing and experiencing all that is going on around me through the filter of my mind's associations? Can I see anything as it really is? How can I know for sure?

Perhaps I could create some sort of unique experience; something that couldn't possibly have any pre-existing associations. In that way I could get a sense of what it is to experience something unfiltered.

Seeing that the other two washers had finished their cycles, many ideas were running through my head. I could take them out with my left hand, being as I was right-handed; I could take them out with my eyes closed; I could ask someone else to take them out for me; I could take them to the dryer one article at a time, etc. None of this seemed feasible, the first was ok but not unique enough, the second would likely end in me losing some of my clothes and the other two would either start a fight or, at least, produce reactions in others I wasn't sure I was prepared to deal with.

What to do? Why was this so difficult?

There was no way I could see to do this but to do it as I normally would. The only change I could make in order to produce this unique-experiencing I desired would have to be an internal one.

Normally when performing this task some of my attention would rest in my hands; sensing the type of and how many articles I was pulling from the machine and placing into my basket. My eyes would follow the action and watch for socks or other things that may fall to the floor as I do so. As this is something so often done in my life it's likely that my thoughts would be wandering their own paths to and fro and wherever the moment suited them to go. The simple action of removing clothes from the machine and placing them in my basket would go on automatically.

And herein lies my opportunity for a unique-experiencing of something unfilitered by inner-associations.

...................

This is the part of my story that I experience a 'block'. This is a purely subjective experiencing and I realize that asking a general audience to follow up is not likely to produce much a satisfying result, but, I can't seem to move forward with this idea so.... Any continuation of this 'story' would be appreciated.

My interest in posting is not in receiving critique or analyses of my incomplete story but, just, if it resonates with anyone, a continuation of the story.

Thank you.