Stream of Consciousness

In class, we are reading Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. This novel is extremely interesting in that there is a constant stream of consciousness that flows through each character, especially the main character of Clarissa.

I was laying in bed this morning reading the novel, and I realized that it was the kind of novel that inspire one to think consciously about their own stream of consciousness and to have their awareness of it heightened. Basically, it makes me feel inspired to write.

For example, this morning was such a delicious morning, with the windows opened and the cool Oklahoma wind by turns gently blowing the blinds into the room and then sucking them out against the screen as if the wind were taking giant breaths of life in the world and then only to violently bang the blinds against the screen, as if the wind were trying to force them outside to join it. The air was light and not too bright - perfect for morning reading in bed. The kind of lightness where you feel that perhaps time has stopped, and will stay stopped. The sage green blanket on the bed and the soft gold sheets against my skin set the light off just right. I felt as though I was wrapped up and nestled in the wind and the air and the feeling of the morning, not just in the blankets and pillows as I curled up with my book. There was a stillness, a peace in the morning; a calmness that calms the soul and refreshes and revives the body. I wondered how many mornings like it I had missed because I was caught up in my business or the business of the day and the hustle and bustle of time and appointments and commitments that push me through the day, often as I resist, longing for the moment I was so enjoying - that quiet stillness. Time wins out though with its pushiness and pushes the morning out to be taken over by the lunchtime hour, whose start was signaled by my growling stomach as it thought about the food in the kitchen, just waiting for me to prepare it. Then the lunchtime hour hurries and rolls into the afternoon hour, which is taken up with commitments of various kinds - writing thank you notes, making necessary phone calls and other obligations. I find myself torn between longing to have a busy, "professional" life and the stillness of the day at home, being a simple housewife. It seems no matter which I have obtained for myself, I long for the other. Such juxtaposition of the soul is such a torment! And so I try for both, which is almost worse because I am in perpetual state of "looking forward" and unable to relax and enjoy the now. The now, like this morning, the soft, light white air of the calm morning: cool, quiet, undemanding, relaxing, wanting nothing but company, which I was only too happy to give it. Alas, but not all mornings can be of such!

I used to write like this quite often - I was always carrying around a small notebook to write an important thought or a poem that came to mind. That was when I was a teenager and the world was new and fresh and I was in love with it. Before I was wounded by circumstance, by time, by uncompassionate selfishness of people, of a person. That was when my writing stopped. When the pain of my life was too much to bear, to even pen, when I wanted simply to get through the day and had no hope of a better tomorrow. That is all behind me now - I have hope of a better tomorrow and yesterdays' better tomorrow was in fact, today. And life is great, life is enjoyable, life is content. Perhaps I shall pick up my pen again and begin to think like I used to . . . but with a new, fresh outlook on life.