“When a person accepts a broader definition of reality, a broader net is cast upon the waters of fortune.”
Last year, I fell in love with Tom Robbins. I was introduced to him by my friend, Jade, when she lent me her copy of his book Still Life With Woodpecker. I read each page slowly and most pages more than once. To the unread eye, such a story that involves a man blowing up a hippy festival and later falling in love with a princess from Seattle likely seems absurd. When Tom Robbins and I first met, I too thought he was a little absurd. Then, I read his words more carefully, I opened my mind wider, and I understood the coded messages written into the pages of his book. Messages of adventure and mystery, and yes, a bit of pleasant absurdity as well, messages that tested the limits of my ill-informed confines, messages that broadened my definition of reality.
Tom Robbins and I are together again. This time, though, I’m reading Skinny Legs and All. Whereas Still Life With Woodpecker was about making love last, Skinny Legs and All is about a woman who separates from her husband (who she never really loved) in a ramshackled journey to discovering her identity. My short summaries make both books seems rather contrite. Quite the contrary, these books are far from contrite, they are shaping a new wider reality for me and that is beyond explanation.
This morning, as Mr. Robbins pulled me out of sleep by telling me a story about the protagonist, Ellen Cherry, undergoing an attitude revolution after committing a bold gesture. The words, that jolted me out of my stupor were
“When a person accepts a broader definition of reality, a broader net is cast upon the waters of fortune.”
I fell immediately in love with Tom Robbins all over again. These words challenged me. Who am I to define reality? Rather, reality cannot be defined because it’s been created by the multitudes. Instead, reality can be accepted and in that acceptance, we can choose action to contour our reality or apathy to suffer in it.
I can’t end this post the same as all the other posts, not after spending the morning lost in the unique words of Mr. Robbins. I want to know what it’s like to let reality rush me and respond by widening, simply to let in more reality. I think that's like letting love in.
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