Letting go

Maybe it's the rain we've been having recently
Something about the rain keeps reminding me
But these days I'm sure you would be surprised
I'm a different person you'd hardly recognise
And there's the reasons why I know
But nobody tells you but the letting go.

(Joe Cocker: The letting go)

It is raining now for a while here in the Netherlands. Well, if you live here, sometimes you have the very feeling it is raining all the time, but I'm not complaining, the weather was quite nice in the past year, it was warm spiced up with a lot of sunshine. But to tell the truth, I actually like rain very much. Not the part where I am getting all the way wet to my bones while riding my bike in the rain to the restaurant where I work, or on the way back, but the rain itself. I like to take an umbrella and some waterproof footware and just walk in the rain and enjoy the scent of it. I like the way how it washes away everything and when it stops raining, and the sky clears up you value the sunshine even more. 

No, there's no misunderstanding, I am writing about letting go. There are many things I would like to let go recently: old habits, fears, doubts, painful memories (because during the great and fun time I had in the past years, I had collected some painful ones as well), etc. In a way, I agree with Carrie Fisher saying in the beginning of her HBO stage show Wishful drinking (which I recommend everyone to watch, because it's hilarious): "I have to start by telling you that my entire lifecould be summed up in one phrase, and that is: if my life wasn't funny, it would just be true, and that is completely unacceptable. Now... what that means is (other than what it sounds like): let's say something happens and from a certain slant, maybe it's tragic and even a little bit shocking. And then time passes and you go to the funny slant and now that very same thing can no longer do you any harm. So, what we're really talking about then is location, location, location"

True. Sometimes I am indulging myself in the past, though I know very well that the past is a nice place to visit but never a pleasant place to stay. Recently I am finding myself wondering about things I could have done better in the past and what I could do in the future in a different way, but the only conclusion I get to is that I need change and I need to let go everything: the past, the fears, the doubts, the pain, and everything else that holds me back.

I remember the last time I had enough of being inable to move anywhere. I felt I was stuck and I had the feeling I cannot breath anymore, and these feelings were painfully familiar. At that time I had no idea how to move out from that hesitating state, being afraid of anything that came into my way. That was the time when I had my ever first portfolio shoot and there I could let go (well, I was half naked), and I could do it for three reasons:

1. I wanted to show my instrument in a way that nobody would expect me to do so. After all, you don't put clothes on a piano, or on a violin or on a cello - that would look sooo silly...
2. By the end of the training I've got during the 6 years of Conservatory I felt myself denuded from many of my old habits.
3. I had soooo much fun :)))

 I will never forget when I let go my yearning for freedom, because the moment I surrendered and made friends with the idea of captivity, freedom fell onto my lap and things suddenly began to move, and I didn't care anymore just went with the flow of events. I didn't even have time to realize what I was doing I was just doing it, because that was the easiest thing to do. As a matter of fact I don't like to think too much forward (though I have many longterm plans), I rather prefer to just do my thing. The less you think, the happier you are afterwards.

Letting go is the hardest thing I've ever encountered, because it holds the possibility of radical change and loosing something that we think it is useful for us. Letting go chases us out into the wilderness of the soul where God knows what awaits for us (for some reason the first that would pop one's mind is something dangerous, or even lethal - isn't it interesting?). I am still learning the art of letting go. So far the most succesfull "letting go"-events were when I could forget about the possible consequences in a way that not even the term would have popped up in my mind. Of course there were a whole series of events that put me into that state of mind.

I am looking for that state of mind now: in the rain, hoping it would wash away everything while waiting for the vital ray of sunshine on my skin and on the path I am following. So I let it rain, I let it go...