Playing hooky

It’s one of the first spring mornings, the sky has opened to a clear blue, the air has softened and the sun beckons me. Almost without deciding to, I get up from my writing desk and step outside.

 

I walk on one of my favorite streets in Barcelona, where a wide path runs between rows of trees, and then, almostimmediately, there it is-that familiar tightening in my stomach. It’s a Wednesday morning and during weekday mornings I write, I do not walk down the street without a reason.

 

I pass a row of benches where elderly people sit. One man has taken off his coat, he tilts his face upward, eyes nearly closed. The light gathers in the wrinkles around them, and slowly, almost shyly, a smile appears.

 

They belong to this hour; they’re retired and feel no guilt about sitting on a bench during a weekday morning. But how much older are they really? Will this sense of guiltmagically disappear in three years’ time when I’m seventy-five and feel I too deserve retirement?

 

It’s the same feeling I had as a boy when I sneaked out of school to look at my classmates from behind the bushes. The same mixture of freedom and unease but the unease is now completely out of sync with reality.

 

I’ve carried a free-floating sense of guilt about not doing enough with me most of my life. It attaches itself to anything that happens to come by, not working out enough, not writing enough pieces, buying too many clothes and taking a stroll on a weekday morning.

 

That feeling disrupts what would otherwise be a pleasant experience, but somehow the familiarity of it outweighs itsannoying effect as if it were a loud family member at the dinner table who’s bothersome but part of the fabric.

 

Who am I feeling guilty towards anyway? There is no one to whom I have to answer, no father, no mother, no teacher, no boss. Do I feel guilty towards myself as if there were two selves? If so, I should tell one of the selves toabsolve the other and free him of the guilt. Of course, thinking this is a mind game, an absurd mentalconstruction. But then, so is the feeling of guilt.

 

Perhaps I should learn to live with this feeling without giving it center stage. When it comes, I acknowledge it,but I do not start a conversation, I just ignore it like I ignore the loud family member at the dinner table.Without an audience, he will naturally become quieter.

 

I continue walking, enjoying the sun, the trees andobserving the people on the benches. And I notice that without my attention, the voice inside me grows just a bitsofter.