In Praise of Drifting by Gillian

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Frequently, drifting, as applied to people, is used negatively. There are those scruffy old bums or drifters in Depression-era movies; not anyone you want to grow up to be.

“Come on,”  parents admonish their adolescent offspring.

“You need some direction in your life. You can’t just drift!“

In the old days, and I mean even before my time, maybe people simply drifted much more than today. Sons drifted into continuing whatever trade their father had, or farming the same family acres, and marrying some vaguely distant cousin from the next valley. Many people did not contemplate these moves, they simply drifted into the next phase of their lives without considering too deeply what in fact they actually wanted. They did not have the options we have now; perhaps in fact just drifting has become a negative because, being privileged to have so many options, we are committing some act of betrayal by not taking complete advantage of them.

I didn’t see myself as drifting, in my younger days, but looking back I see clearly that I was. I drifted my way through life letting others design major life changes for me, until I came out to myself.  Then decision-making on behalf of the real me versus that character acting my part, became meaningful. But I’ve written about all that several times before and I won’t go into that again.

So, in praise of drifting.

I think most clearly, most productively, when I’m drifting in that warm pool of unconsciousness just below the waking level. I am unaware that I’m thinking, but I must be because I so often wake up with the puzzle solved, the solution at hand, the decision made, the story written. No, I haven’t taken to sleep-walking, let alone sleep-writing, but usually I decide, as I drift just below the surface, what I want to write for Story Time, or on that difficult Sympathy card, or in that note of apology.

I also love physical drifting. I lie on my back in the swimming pool, letting every muscle go limp, and just drift. I empty my brain of all thought, my body of all power, and just drift. Usually I’m bumped out of my reverie by an irritated hand or foot pushing me away, or the cold hard edge of the pool impeding my slow, aimless, motion. Drifting is not as easy as it sounds!

The first time I was married, my husband and I, and his children, lived in Jamestown, an old gold-mining town in the Foothills above Boulder. We had a horse, and the town is surrounded by National Forest. I loved to spend any free time I managed to grab, which was not much, riding along the endless trails. But this wan’t really riding, it was nothing more than sitting on the back of a horse. I rarely touched the reins, the old mare wandered wherever she wanted; we drifted. At least I did. She had very definite ideas on where she was heading. She had been trained as a cutting horse, and, having spent most of her life among them, I don’t think it had ever occurred to her that she was not, in fact, a cow. In the summer months herds summer-pastured in the forests around town, and instinct always told her where they were on any particular day. She wandered lazily in their direction. I drifted idly in the saddle. Idyllic moments. Until, reaching a certain closeness to the herd, she would, without warning, break into an excited gallop which, inevitably, tore me from my drifting state and propelled me into an equally excited grab for the reins. After cutting out a couple of resentful cows from the herd, to keep her hand in so to speak, she settled in to graze with them for the rest of her life, each time resulting in a battle of wills when I decided it was time head for the barn. But once her reluctant head was turned in that direction, she usually being the only one who knew the way home, we returned to our peaceful pattern, she wandering, me drifting.

We love to drift when Betsy and I go off on trips in our camper-van. Of course we usually have some vague plan of when and where, but we have no reservations, no deadlines. We change decisions frequently; staying longer here, less time there, ending up in a campground we had no intention of using, or didn’t even know existed. I have no desire to live like that every day of my life, but it’s wonderfully free and relaxing for a while. Just drifting.

I find, as I age, that actually I do live more like that, more of the time. It’s so much easier to do a little more delicious drifting in the latter part of life. Drifting doesn’t go down well with teachers and bosses. When you have successfully escaped their strictures, it becomes much easier to decide not to do that today, or to go there next week, or to stay a few days longer. Betsy and I both find ourselves shrugging a casual “whatever,” in answer to questions to which we would have had very definite responses not so long ago.

And of course we are all carried along, inevitably, in the Big Drift, which will deposit us, sooner or later, in the Big Sleep. We have always known this, but it hangs around the front of my mind rather more as later becomes less likely with each passing day, and sooner approaches with indecent haste. I don’t know what awaits me where the Big Drift pours over the cliffs, but I do know I will not burn in some eternal fire any more than I shall play the harp upon a cloud.

I have no fears, and find myself at odds with my adored Dylan Thomas. Perhaps, for some psyches, it is healthier to rage against the dying of the light, but I think not for mine. When that time comes I hope to drift, peacefully, towards the light.

© July 2014  

About the Author  

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.