Looking for Lily

Embrace the Unknown

Looking for Lily

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde

“It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

      Boots thundering, Lily rolls face first into the gutter. She wants to throw a tantrum to suck her thumb but can't, her fist is in her mouth to stop the scream coming out.

      “Get her off the road, HURRY.”

      Lily’s is curled in her foetus position, someone yanks her arms from under her and drags her over the gutter. Boots drown the scream. She clutches her heart it feels broken. She is laid out face first, midway between the CBD and Bondi, in the City to Surf Marathon. She does not see the curious onlookers crowding round her, she is smack bang, back in childhood. Where is Lily?

      “Lucky she is ahead of the pack. Her knee looks nasty, she is no spring chicken, either,” a crew member says to no one in particular. He's trying to shield her from the crowd with his body. He shouts to someone, anyone; “call an ambulance, tell them we have an emergency at the Junction.

      “Hang in there, love, not too far away.”

      ‘No spring chicken’ do they think she is deaf, as well as stupid. She is face to face with a creation of her imagination, a mirage.

Real Lily is missing.

……

      ‘It is no use now to pretend to be two people, there’s not enough of you to make one respectable person.’

……

      ‘Shush!’ She curls again into foetus, someone should comfort her. Words seem empty but she cannot remember, what do people say to soothe a broken heart?

      ‘Self-doubt is finite, hope is infinite,’ she thinks it like a lullaby, it is the best she can do. Lying on the footpath, ripe with the stench of vomit, boots bearing down, it sounds silly.

      No one ever told her grief for the past feels like fear of the future.

      “Terrifying!” she says.

      “Sure is, love, this will ease the pain,” a sympathetic voice says injecting her with something Lily prays will knock her out. Seventy years of instantaneous and rapid manifestation of autobiographical memory flash before her eyes.

      She always tells herself she is special, destined for something transformative, sometime, in the future. Hope is her waking dream it propels her out of bed each morning, anticipation a ticking clock, it is the source of optimism she needs to prepare for the moment. She strives for excellence in readiness for the day.

      ……

      “NO one loves a misery-me, Lily! Look up, get up, and never give up; look on the bright side,” Mother says. Negativity fills Lily with dread, she always takes a deep breath and invokes her desire, ‘I am special, I am special, I am.’

      Imagination is her friend in-need, sometimes it takes her down rabbit holes that cause her to wonder if in-deed, it is her friend.

      They are mad, mad as hatters, down there.

      ……..

 “Look on the bright side,” Phillip says.

“Is there a bright side?” Lily slurs, thrashing her way out of the hole she is in. She tastes metal her lips feel parched, she licks them and tastes blood. Real Lily must be dead. An overhead light keeps her eyes shut tight she can only see within, and it is dark; she wants to curl again, but remembers, it is not safe.

      ……

‘It would be nice if something made sense for a change.’

‘Frankly, Alice, we will never know the life I chose not to live, I only know it was important, it was mine and I left it on the lowest branch of the faraway tree. I chose wonderland instead.’

      ……

“You need reconstructive surgery, you have ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament ACL, it will not heal by itself. The bright side is you will be back on deck in four to six months. I know you resist medication, Lily, but this injury requires painkillers. Strong ones!”

Phillip is her doctor, one of a kind who treats his patient who has a malady, this time he is firm. He is ignoring Lily, treating the malady.

      “If it is not broken, don’t fix it,” she usually demurs.

     “This time it’s broken,” he says.

     “Yes, sir,” she says smiling at Cheshire Cat before she drinks the Jabberwocky blood, so she knows where she is heading.

    “Stay on your meds, they will get you through.”

      The pain in her knee, the embarrassment of falling in a gutter, do not compare to the shame she feels. You might think you see her, but she is a figment of imagination. She is looking at her knee but locked in the childish thrill of realisation, she has a superpower. She can create her own destiny by the power of her imagination.

Father Martin confirms it when he prepares her for her first Communion; ‘always remember Lily you are like God, made in His image.’

She makes sure to imagine her extraordinary future life, one that proclaims the Good News, she is special; especially, chosen.

      ……

‘No excuses. Mark, it, F - Reality is Real - you fail the test.’

She always quoted Henry Ford to her students when they failed.

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.’

 That hurts! She is proud of her intelligence. Nothing is too much effort, she finds learning easy and she loves it (aka; it is also strategic, in preparation for when her true calling presents, sometime in the future.)

Obviously absurd; at least she is consistent. A walking contradiction, an intelligent moron, clearly confused, cleverly stupid, imaginary Lily, real Lily.

 Aha! Real Lily still exists, then!

 Is this her one and only life? Her only opportunity?

......

‘Look around, new leaves flourish because old leaves fall, the natural impermanence of things is the miracle of life.’

“Is that you, God?”

‘No, it’s Alice.’

“Would you tell me, please, which way ought I go from here?”

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.’

“I hardly know, at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I am not myself you see.”

......

Her lifetime achievements, a doctorate in Behavioural Science, she is fluent in Spanish and Japanese, well-known for her pursuit of excellence, her successful teaching career; they are not the extraordinary expectations of her imagination. They are the realistic steps she takes in preparation for the extraordinary transformation, she expects. They have nothing to teach her about the existential question she is now facing.

Who am I? Where is real Lily?

......

‘Begin at the beginning, every adventure requires a first step,’ the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’

“I don’t think”

‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.

“Thank you, King. I know where I am heading now. I will start at the beginning and not stop until I find real Lily.”

“And I will stop thinking, and start seeing clearly, thank you, Hatter.”

......

True to her promise, Lily does not talk back to Phillip’s command, ‘stay on your meds.’ She intends to embrace the unknown, find what she is seeking on her terms, with a clear head. Free of Wonderland, free from her current drug induced reality, free of everything she thinks she knows. They are obviously illusions.

It is time to embrace reality, to understand, to find real Lily.

'Who in the world am I?'

'How long is forever?'

'Sometimes, just one second.'

"Goodbye, then. I'm on my way."