Odd Auditory Hallucination

I had an unusual auditory hallucination today.  I thought I heard my mother, several states away, calling my name. It took me aback because I had been doing so well with keeping touch with reality, or at least my little version of it.  I’m beginning to wonder just what percentage of life is “real” and just what is imaginary.  I suppose I’ll find out in the fulness of time.I recently contacted my former art teacher who worked with me at the hospital.  She is a very nice person and was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal period for me.  Life is just so chaotic, I wonder how normal people assess their lives, or if they consciously take the time to do so at all.  Living a conscious life is about the best you can hope for, and there is nowhere that you’re actually more awake and conscious than in a psychiatric hospital. At least that was the case for me; I felt as though I was Rip Van Winkle, just waking up from a long, intense period of sleep, eyes finally opened up to the realities of the day.  I wonder, do they- the “normal”- live consciously by habit, or is it learned?  Is it nature or nurture?  That is assuming that they live consciously at all. Perhaps then the abnormal is the ideal. Maybe the mad and the homeless and the dispossessed are the real prophets and if we listen to them closely enough and muse constructively on whatever we can glean,  you can perhaps find a design for living at your ease; a place wherein the soul can find some comfort. (?)  It’s not a new concept- that maybe the most ignored voices are in the end the most prophetic- it goes back a ways- at least to John the Baptist. Who knows? Perhaps all of what we’re taught that life should be is erroneous; it’s the eccentric that should be the norm. It’s amazing what I have managed to learn from humble sources- more than anything I’ve ever learned in a university, that’s for certain. Listening can ennoble you; I’m convinced that it makes you more fully human.  Think of what you can learn; a richer understanding of humanity-motherhood, God in His mercy, the milk of human kindness, the family of man; whom among us don’t need them?