I woke up this morning with a head full of angst and remnants of unsettled dreams. I believe both were induced by a dearth of good money combined with a surfeit of bad government. Too much is too much, even when it springs from not enough. I did not face the day with confidence.
Stoic chewing through a breakfast that was so much better than the mundanity it suggested. Having low expectations will do that to a soul. The taste faded quickly, my mind and belly experiencing a familiar disconnect. Normally, food captures my imagination but lately it has been more of a minor distraction in the face of the thought-pressure I cannot cease generating. I ate. Tasted, not so much.
I loaded my gear into my car, trying not to think about the new tires it truly needs, but may not get soon enough. Another money cliff over which I could fall. A deep breath and a shake of the head succeeds in dispelling that particular cloud. I have some work to do, thankfully, enough to make it through the day.
Into the car, onto the road. Local radio for company. The smart phone chirps intermittently, offering directions which veer from helpful to annoying. But I do not turn it off.
The work proceeds smoothly, mostly. Later, when I begin to grow tired and hungry, the fingers grow clumsy. The mind grows dull. Minor errors multiply. Epithets escape gritted teeth. It is done.
Setting off for home I experience some small glitches in the technology I carry. My annoyance is somewhat out of proportion to the severity of the offense. It grows when faced with some truly questionable driving decisions inflicted upon the innocents by a careless boor who must have received their driving lessons via old-fashioned mail. I grow cranky.
Upon arrival at mi casa, the tussle with technology is not over. The computer awaits, it cannot be avoided, so to the interface I must. Cables and image files and downloads and uploads; the party is just getting started. Files are sloughed off, folders created, bits and bytes are pushed around.
It gets close to dinner time when I realize my early-morning funk never quite went away. Partly hunger, I know, because I skipped lunch. A rumbling belly nudges me in the direction of the kitchen, in search of some leftover soup. Disconnected dissatisfaction with modern life hovers about, a thin gray cloak settled over slumping shoulders. The relief was in the technology, though.
Today on the internet, I saw a short video about kids playing musical instruments made out of recycled landfill debris. A cello. A violin. What looked to be trumpets and other brasses. Kids whose families earn a living by culling refuse and recycling it to sell for money. They were playing symphonic music, and playing it well. It was so beautiful it made the filth and trash disappear.
My smartphone was losing some of its shine. I sat there with my bowl of homemade soup, lip quivering.
Today on the internet, I saw an interview with Malala Yousafzai, the young lady from Pakistan who garnered international renown when members of the Taliban shot her in the head, all because she championed the rights of girls and women to be educated. She was composed, passionate and inspiring. Her words were so beautiful they made the violence and hate disappear.
A group of violent reactionaries attempted to kill a 15-year old girl who wanted to be educated. I thought of my own daughter and her love for school. I bit my lip, swallowed my soup.
It was then that the cloud lifted. I have a phone that can access the sum total of human knowledge. I have the resources to make good food to fill my belly. What I do not do is make cellos out of oil drums and cast-off wood. What I do not fear is being targeted for assassination because of my gender and desire to gain knowledge. In those, I am blessed.
And if anyone cannot be inspired by true triumphs of human ingenuity and character, if a "Landfillharmonic" and the courage of a girl who truly had a lot to lose, well, then I am unsure there is hope for them.
As to myself, I wept a little, relieved that I am human.
Showing posts with label whats so funny 'bout peace love and understanding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whats so funny 'bout peace love and understanding. Show all posts
11 October 2013
11 August 2012
Horizons As Big As Our Hearts
What are the edges of your love? Not boundaries, mind you,
but edges. When I think of boundary I think of a discrete stop, beyond
which a thing cannot go. "Edge" to me speaks of a condition less static,
more fluid and less sharp.
A barbed wire fence is a boundary. A tide line is an
edge. Does that make sense? The wire is meant to keep something out, or
keep something in. Where the water meets the shore is interplay and
mingling of sea, sand and air. Fences are imposed by an outside order. Tide lines arise from organic circumstance.
I wonder if it is the same with love. It saddens me
to think of love as something that requires capture and containment in
order to flourish. Who would want their heart brought to rest upon rusty
wire, held in place only to bleed out onto an uncaring earth? Would it
not be grander, more humane and satisfying to alight upon the shored
from the curl of a wave, delighting in sun and spray?
These things occurred to me while considering if the
love within us is possessed of a horizon. This thought a random bit of
mental flotsam, conjured up by the quantum associations of conversations
touching on love. The image in my head one of standing on deck with my
eyes on the horizon, and wondering just how far away it could be.
The idea stuck with me, I suppose because oceans and
love have fascinated me for years. Fascinated and spooked me
simultaneously, as I always have been when surrounded by vastness I
cannot fully comprehend. Deep ocean, vast hearts. I admire the one and
crave the other, yet am fearful of being swallowed whole by both.
Ultimately how big can they be and we survive their mysterious
embraces?
As a result of this anxious meditation I have a
better understanding of my own concerns. For the longest time I have
held in my heart that in order for it to love, it had to have limits to
that love; if it did not, the heart would be lost, swept away and
identity dissolved. It is true that love to some degree requires the
giving up of ego, an unsettling but necessary act that can lead to deep
understanding.
Clinging to ego can be limiting,
however. One perhaps may never know the true depths and breadths of love
if one never lets go. This is a notion that has crept up on me, and now
refuses to go away. Because I wonder, how much love have I missed
because I was afraid of that which appears to be without limits? How
much love could it be possible for me to receive if my heart became as
an ocean?
It has been suggested to me that
the amount is infinite. What is required is the removal of those limits
imposed by the ego. Fear is yet another attachment that prevents us from
opening ourselves up to love.
The greater the distance to the
horizon of love, the larger the sphere of our hearts, but this is less
important than defining that horizon as boundary or edge. Boundaries
allow for control, but perhaps at the expense of growth. Edges allow more space for growth. Love needs edges. Love needs horizons as big as our
hearts.
29 January 2012
Sunday Meditation #14: On Discarding the Noise of the World
How to walk in the woods without being in the woods? This is the dilemma before me this day, a fine winter Saturday in this January. I am feeling under the weather, and it has tempered my plan to walk down by the river to restore some balance to my inner self. Perhaps I am a reverse Muhammad, seeking to have the 'mountain' come to me, just this once. In my current state, I may not have the energy to go to the mountain.
In the pursuit of balance, this walk may be necessary. The noise of the world has been heavy on my mind in recent days. The fault lies entirely within myself. I opened the spigot far too much, as it were. A strange intersection of necessity and idleness led me astray into the wilds of social media and Internet. Useful tools and conduits I'm sure you would agree. But shiny and seductive in ways that are not always good for us.
Paraphrasing a friend of mine, who was actually referring to F**eb**k, the Internet is like one long conversation that never ends. So many thoughts, observations, quotations flying back and forth. And like any medium of communication, besmirched with a lot of ignorance, misinformation, and wrongheadedness. This environment can be mental quicksand for those inclined to tilt at windmills.
Those people such as this author. Harrumph.
I have allowed myself too much traipsing about in the wastelands of social commentary. I have allowed myself to be entangled far too deeply in the small-mindedness of consumer culture and politics. Politics in particular. Election years in specific tend to be time-sumps, and with the "facilitator of dreams" that is electronic media, the sump is in danger of becoming all-consuming.
Another wise friend of mine had advised me some weeks ago forgo tilting at windmills, and she was spot on in that advice. This is a time now that I should let go, back up, and leave the windmills to their own devices. I am only one man. I have only one voice. That voice cannot sustain infinite conversation and fruitless dissipation. that way lies weariness and stress. It behooves me to temper myself, my leaps into the din and clatter.
It is time to reacquaint myself with my center. It is time for a walk in the woods, whether they come to me or I go to them, so I may discard the noise of the world and hear my own voice again.
In the pursuit of balance, this walk may be necessary. The noise of the world has been heavy on my mind in recent days. The fault lies entirely within myself. I opened the spigot far too much, as it were. A strange intersection of necessity and idleness led me astray into the wilds of social media and Internet. Useful tools and conduits I'm sure you would agree. But shiny and seductive in ways that are not always good for us.
Paraphrasing a friend of mine, who was actually referring to F**eb**k, the Internet is like one long conversation that never ends. So many thoughts, observations, quotations flying back and forth. And like any medium of communication, besmirched with a lot of ignorance, misinformation, and wrongheadedness. This environment can be mental quicksand for those inclined to tilt at windmills.
Those people such as this author. Harrumph.
I have allowed myself too much traipsing about in the wastelands of social commentary. I have allowed myself to be entangled far too deeply in the small-mindedness of consumer culture and politics. Politics in particular. Election years in specific tend to be time-sumps, and with the "facilitator of dreams" that is electronic media, the sump is in danger of becoming all-consuming.
Another wise friend of mine had advised me some weeks ago forgo tilting at windmills, and she was spot on in that advice. This is a time now that I should let go, back up, and leave the windmills to their own devices. I am only one man. I have only one voice. That voice cannot sustain infinite conversation and fruitless dissipation. that way lies weariness and stress. It behooves me to temper myself, my leaps into the din and clatter.
It is time to reacquaint myself with my center. It is time for a walk in the woods, whether they come to me or I go to them, so I may discard the noise of the world and hear my own voice again.
20 January 2012
Human, Kind
In over three months of unemployment, I have spent a majority fraction of my waking hours thinking about, looking for, and worrying over finding a job. This we know, as I have beat that particular horse too often in the annals of Irish Gumbo. This week was no different.
Right now, dear ones, I don't want to dissect the job hunt. I want to get something different out of my head. Something that has been incubating in there for weeks, and that I finally put my finger on today.
In my time that has not been spent on job searching activities, I have had the opportunity for steady engagement with current events. Not always to my benefit, either, as I tend to mouth off at the computer or the television when perusing or watching the news. I have had many opportunities to indulge my love of reading and research in following threads on a wide range of topics. When something catches my interest I savor the opportunity to follow it until I decide I have learned enough, not when the dictates of the outside world say I am done.
In an election year this carries noticeable risk. Especially when one has strong feelings and opinions about many things involving the human condition. This year it has been especially acute given all the attention lavished on the issues of what constitutes marriage, families, gender politics and equality. When this is mashed up with regressive social thinking, bigotry, hatred and exclusion, it becomes a big thought bomb. Today it blew up in my face.
A lot of wind has blown from the mouths of conservative, right-wing, supposedly religious people in the past few months. A lot of foul, obnoxious wind. Much talk has been aimed at the supposed damage that has been done to "God, America and Family" by those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people. We have presidential candidates signing pledges vowing to be faithful to their spouses and to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and opposing same-sex marriages, while continuing to maintain the false premise that homosexuality is merely a "choice". We have politicians who have been divorced multiple times (including cheating on a spouse while trying to divorce them) telling us our morals are corrupt and "America has lost its way".
There are people who call themselves serious contenders for the office of President of the United States, and seem to think nothing of condemning lives they obviously don't understand. They claim to stand for the ideals of a country founded on the principles of life and liberty written into the U.S. Constitution. It is a poor joke to claim one stands for individual freedom while ostracizing and attempting to legally exclude whole groups of people from the benefits and protections of the law. It is abhorrent to use hate and ignorance to tell anyone, not just Americans, you don't deserve to be treated as an equal human being because you are a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person.
What that amounts to is saying: you are not human.
It is a classic sign of a fascist mindset to designate a class of people as The Others, The Different, The Outsiders, in order to galvanize the remaining people with fear and hate, as a method of exerting political control. Look at the governments of Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, the Soviet Union of Stalin. Look at McCarthyism in the 1950's. The thread continues into today. Look at the idiocy that spews from the organizations supporting Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, any of them. Better yet, look at the statements and actions of the people themselves. Signing ridiculous pledges. Claiming that the morals of the country are being destroyed by people who don't marry, or want to marry a person of the same gender; that ruin lies down the path of acknowledging someone who was born one gender realizes they are really another.
You know who else makes hateful, ignorant, repellent statements like that? Groups like the Taliban, and other religious fundamentalists. Groups who want to control what you feel, who you love, what life you want to live. It is terribly insulting to me, and incredibly dangerous to others, to be told that my morals are corrupt...because I don't think the way they do.
My morals are just fine, thank you. I don't need some ignorant, power-hungry buffoons deciding for me what is right or proper, especially when their definition of right and proper is based on taking away freedoms and arbitrarily designating some people as not worthy of love, respect or protection under the law.
To sit and listen to someone slander tens of thousands of their fellow citizens, to hear the hypocrisy behind asking for their votes while working to deny them basic rights, is abhorrent beyond endurance. They cannot claim to know what is best for all citizens, because they have demonstrated they do not have empathy for or understanding of all those citizens. Anyone who cannot see the crippling inconsistencies in their ideology, and expects me to ignore those inconsistencies, has no business running the country.
I am not a lesbian. I am not gay. I am not bisexual. I am not transgender. I am a heterosexual male. Most important of all, I am a human being, as is anyone who identifies as LGBT.
To condemn people to the status of sub-human, not equal, because of their inherent identity is probably the most revolting perversion of the American ideal I have witnessed in my lifetime. The claim that we are a compassionate, humane and free society will remain a joke if intolerance and hate become the rule of law.
We all deserve love and respect based on who we are, not on someones ignorant and hateful definition of who they think we are. I cannot accept, will not accept, will not support any political hopeful who wants to exclude human beings from society based on lives different than their own. Different does not equate with wrong.
Heterosexual. Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. We all identify as one of those. The common thread is that we are all human beings. It saddens me to think there are forces out there that want to deny many of us our humanity. Those forces must be opposed.
Right now, dear ones, I don't want to dissect the job hunt. I want to get something different out of my head. Something that has been incubating in there for weeks, and that I finally put my finger on today.
In my time that has not been spent on job searching activities, I have had the opportunity for steady engagement with current events. Not always to my benefit, either, as I tend to mouth off at the computer or the television when perusing or watching the news. I have had many opportunities to indulge my love of reading and research in following threads on a wide range of topics. When something catches my interest I savor the opportunity to follow it until I decide I have learned enough, not when the dictates of the outside world say I am done.
In an election year this carries noticeable risk. Especially when one has strong feelings and opinions about many things involving the human condition. This year it has been especially acute given all the attention lavished on the issues of what constitutes marriage, families, gender politics and equality. When this is mashed up with regressive social thinking, bigotry, hatred and exclusion, it becomes a big thought bomb. Today it blew up in my face.
A lot of wind has blown from the mouths of conservative, right-wing, supposedly religious people in the past few months. A lot of foul, obnoxious wind. Much talk has been aimed at the supposed damage that has been done to "God, America and Family" by those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people. We have presidential candidates signing pledges vowing to be faithful to their spouses and to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and opposing same-sex marriages, while continuing to maintain the false premise that homosexuality is merely a "choice". We have politicians who have been divorced multiple times (including cheating on a spouse while trying to divorce them) telling us our morals are corrupt and "America has lost its way".
There are people who call themselves serious contenders for the office of President of the United States, and seem to think nothing of condemning lives they obviously don't understand. They claim to stand for the ideals of a country founded on the principles of life and liberty written into the U.S. Constitution. It is a poor joke to claim one stands for individual freedom while ostracizing and attempting to legally exclude whole groups of people from the benefits and protections of the law. It is abhorrent to use hate and ignorance to tell anyone, not just Americans, you don't deserve to be treated as an equal human being because you are a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person.
What that amounts to is saying: you are not human.
It is a classic sign of a fascist mindset to designate a class of people as The Others, The Different, The Outsiders, in order to galvanize the remaining people with fear and hate, as a method of exerting political control. Look at the governments of Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, the Soviet Union of Stalin. Look at McCarthyism in the 1950's. The thread continues into today. Look at the idiocy that spews from the organizations supporting Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, any of them. Better yet, look at the statements and actions of the people themselves. Signing ridiculous pledges. Claiming that the morals of the country are being destroyed by people who don't marry, or want to marry a person of the same gender; that ruin lies down the path of acknowledging someone who was born one gender realizes they are really another.
You know who else makes hateful, ignorant, repellent statements like that? Groups like the Taliban, and other religious fundamentalists. Groups who want to control what you feel, who you love, what life you want to live. It is terribly insulting to me, and incredibly dangerous to others, to be told that my morals are corrupt...because I don't think the way they do.
My morals are just fine, thank you. I don't need some ignorant, power-hungry buffoons deciding for me what is right or proper, especially when their definition of right and proper is based on taking away freedoms and arbitrarily designating some people as not worthy of love, respect or protection under the law.
To sit and listen to someone slander tens of thousands of their fellow citizens, to hear the hypocrisy behind asking for their votes while working to deny them basic rights, is abhorrent beyond endurance. They cannot claim to know what is best for all citizens, because they have demonstrated they do not have empathy for or understanding of all those citizens. Anyone who cannot see the crippling inconsistencies in their ideology, and expects me to ignore those inconsistencies, has no business running the country.
I am not a lesbian. I am not gay. I am not bisexual. I am not transgender. I am a heterosexual male. Most important of all, I am a human being, as is anyone who identifies as LGBT.
To condemn people to the status of sub-human, not equal, because of their inherent identity is probably the most revolting perversion of the American ideal I have witnessed in my lifetime. The claim that we are a compassionate, humane and free society will remain a joke if intolerance and hate become the rule of law.
We all deserve love and respect based on who we are, not on someones ignorant and hateful definition of who they think we are. I cannot accept, will not accept, will not support any political hopeful who wants to exclude human beings from society based on lives different than their own. Different does not equate with wrong.
Heterosexual. Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. We all identify as one of those. The common thread is that we are all human beings. It saddens me to think there are forces out there that want to deny many of us our humanity. Those forces must be opposed.
25 December 2011
Sunday Meditation #12: Christmas Threads and Contradictions
An odd run-up to this, my forty-seventh Christmas on Earth. Alone in my house two days ago, chuckling at my own weirdness as I stood in bar of sunlight, a copy of A Year With Thomas Merton in my hands, and the supercharged chant of Rollins' Band "Shine" shaking the walls a little as I read. How this came to be I cannot recall. I do know that at the time, it made perfect sense.
I have been reading the Merton book since June, which is the month in which I acquired it. The short daily meditations I mostly read at the pace of one a day, in sync with the calendar. Time and circumstance conspired to disturb the symmetry of that schedule. Lately I have the habit of neglecting the book for days at a time, then catch up in a concentrated burst of reading when I have time. So it was this time.
"In The End, Grace Alone" the title of Merton's meditation. Henry Rollins exhorts me to "Shine" as I read it. I lean against the door frame and grin. This time the apparent cognitive dissonance of the ideas before my mind does not bother me. Merton writes of his frustration with being an intellectual in a land of "businessmen and squares", while Rollins practically boots me in the ass to be a hero. It is to laugh, and I do.
Truly it does not bother me, these two ends of the tug rope. I've lived with the bifurcation of my interior life for so long it seems normal. I feel like a warrior-poet, except I cannot squarely identify my foe or my muse. I very often, in the words of Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), "obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul". These exhortations I have trouble explaining to myself, much less to others.
Yet I listen. I savor. I worry them with the teeth of my mind. Somewhere on there exists my destination.
The season and in particular, this day, always place me in this frame of mind. A season of merriment and good will towards humankind marred by either too much belief or not enough. By some lights it isn't enough that you be kindly disposed to those around you, you must be Christian and you have to believe. Never mind all the ironies involved in the chauvinistic demands for "keeping Christ in Christmas" when Christmas itself was taken over from a pagan holiday and has been further hijacked by a consumer-driven, free market (arguably) capitalistic and money-driven culture. No wonder this time of year produces so much anxiety in so many.
There seems to be little real peace, and true love. For better or worse, Christmas as a season and a holiday has been dilated too much by the demands of an open society for the 'at-large' return to a ritual acknowledgment of the birth of Jesus Christ. To do so would be to ignore entire segments of our society, and would not be allowed by the money machines of consumer capitalism because it would cut down on the profit pool. From what I see in the news, it is either about mass consumption or religious narrow-mindedness. Hardly anyone speaks of peace, at least, not in a pure sense.
For myself, I want peace of mind. I want the simple joy to be found in caring for those around you and in the communion with life in the universe. I do not want to be wrapped up in questions of salvation versus damnation, belief versus non-belief, extravagant consumption in the face of need. The former question misses the point of personal faith, and the latter question is one that exists independently of any holiday. Neither is a question to be solved if this is supposed to be a matter of peace and love.
Thomas Merton and Henry Rollins: the yin and yang of my Christmas season. They both speak to me, in different tongues. The thinker and the warrior tell me to seek inner peace, but I will have to fight for it. This makes me laugh. Salvation and consumption both seem to me to be missing the main point: that we should exist in love and seek peace in ourselves so that we may know it with others.
As I meditate on my roots this Christmas, I feel I am closer to casting aside the distractions and noise of this world, and getting much closer to love and to peace. This is my wish for us all.
I have been reading the Merton book since June, which is the month in which I acquired it. The short daily meditations I mostly read at the pace of one a day, in sync with the calendar. Time and circumstance conspired to disturb the symmetry of that schedule. Lately I have the habit of neglecting the book for days at a time, then catch up in a concentrated burst of reading when I have time. So it was this time.
"In The End, Grace Alone" the title of Merton's meditation. Henry Rollins exhorts me to "Shine" as I read it. I lean against the door frame and grin. This time the apparent cognitive dissonance of the ideas before my mind does not bother me. Merton writes of his frustration with being an intellectual in a land of "businessmen and squares", while Rollins practically boots me in the ass to be a hero. It is to laugh, and I do.
Truly it does not bother me, these two ends of the tug rope. I've lived with the bifurcation of my interior life for so long it seems normal. I feel like a warrior-poet, except I cannot squarely identify my foe or my muse. I very often, in the words of Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), "obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul". These exhortations I have trouble explaining to myself, much less to others.
Yet I listen. I savor. I worry them with the teeth of my mind. Somewhere on there exists my destination.
The season and in particular, this day, always place me in this frame of mind. A season of merriment and good will towards humankind marred by either too much belief or not enough. By some lights it isn't enough that you be kindly disposed to those around you, you must be Christian and you have to believe. Never mind all the ironies involved in the chauvinistic demands for "keeping Christ in Christmas" when Christmas itself was taken over from a pagan holiday and has been further hijacked by a consumer-driven, free market (arguably) capitalistic and money-driven culture. No wonder this time of year produces so much anxiety in so many.
There seems to be little real peace, and true love. For better or worse, Christmas as a season and a holiday has been dilated too much by the demands of an open society for the 'at-large' return to a ritual acknowledgment of the birth of Jesus Christ. To do so would be to ignore entire segments of our society, and would not be allowed by the money machines of consumer capitalism because it would cut down on the profit pool. From what I see in the news, it is either about mass consumption or religious narrow-mindedness. Hardly anyone speaks of peace, at least, not in a pure sense.
For myself, I want peace of mind. I want the simple joy to be found in caring for those around you and in the communion with life in the universe. I do not want to be wrapped up in questions of salvation versus damnation, belief versus non-belief, extravagant consumption in the face of need. The former question misses the point of personal faith, and the latter question is one that exists independently of any holiday. Neither is a question to be solved if this is supposed to be a matter of peace and love.
Thomas Merton and Henry Rollins: the yin and yang of my Christmas season. They both speak to me, in different tongues. The thinker and the warrior tell me to seek inner peace, but I will have to fight for it. This makes me laugh. Salvation and consumption both seem to me to be missing the main point: that we should exist in love and seek peace in ourselves so that we may know it with others.
As I meditate on my roots this Christmas, I feel I am closer to casting aside the distractions and noise of this world, and getting much closer to love and to peace. This is my wish for us all.
30 September 2011
Ask and Ye Shall Receive, One Hopes
What would it be like, to not ask questions? To not be curious? There is no time in my life after puberty that I can recall not being inquisitive. I don't mean questioning of the rapid-fire "daddywhyistheskyblue?" type questioning. I've always been a quieter, observe-and-research type asker of questions.
Why do birds do that?
Why do leaves turn red?
How does an eddy form in the water behind a rock?
What do people hear in the music of Kesha that makes them want to listen to it?
Why is the sky blue? (I do known the answer to that one. Now.)
Being a questioner is strongly correlated with being a thinker. And so it is with me. I am wont to think. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about love. Love always brings up questions, does it not? One question that I've been ruminating on a lot is this: Why love?
I'm sure this is a question that we can attempt to answer, we may think we have an answer, but ultimately cannot really be answered. I entertain the notion that rather than try to answer it, it is best to just live it.
Is that enough? Will that do? Tell me, for you: Why love?
Why do birds do that?
Why do leaves turn red?
How does an eddy form in the water behind a rock?
What do people hear in the music of Kesha that makes them want to listen to it?
Why is the sky blue? (I do known the answer to that one. Now.)
Being a questioner is strongly correlated with being a thinker. And so it is with me. I am wont to think. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about love. Love always brings up questions, does it not? One question that I've been ruminating on a lot is this: Why love?
I'm sure this is a question that we can attempt to answer, we may think we have an answer, but ultimately cannot really be answered. I entertain the notion that rather than try to answer it, it is best to just live it.
Is that enough? Will that do? Tell me, for you: Why love?
11 September 2011
Sunday Meditation #5: On Unfathomable Violence
It crept up on me, this tenth anniversary of the day that changed the world. Ten years gone since the twin towers fell, and we all felt as if we would never be safe again. I made no plans to commemorate the events, as even memorials however well-intentioned will always carry the taint of the things that made memorials necessary in the first place. A lot has been said since September 11, 2001 and a lot of people have been hurt or killed in pursuit of trying to make things right. All of this, the totality of the thread that binds together horrendous evil and spectacular good, saddens me.
I will not, cannot, let it rule my life. It will not do to forget what happened, of course, but I can no longer live my life under a cloud or in fear. Such a state of affairs would be a repudiation of all that we claim to stand for, that the terrorists so misguidedly thought they could dissuade us from practicing: the freedom to pursue our lives navigated by the pole star of our conscience, free from tyranny and fear.
This thread has been spun by the hearts of humans, filled with good and evil, to create a fabric we cannot unravel. This, because we are human beings. But because I am a human being I will no longer spend this day wallowing in fear and sadness. I hope that my morning of sipping tea and quiet meditation on the notion of being human serves as a rejection of evil and hate in the world. Because I no longer hate the terrorists. I do not subscribe, and never will subscribe, to their warped notions of what this world should be. It is those ideas I would hate, if I could find the energy to continue hating.
I will not hate them, any longer, because hating them only validates their view of us. But hate is what they brought. Hate is the food they wished us to swallow. I, for one, have had my fill of hate.
I am a hungry man, to be sure, but it is love upon which I must feed.
I will not, cannot, let it rule my life. It will not do to forget what happened, of course, but I can no longer live my life under a cloud or in fear. Such a state of affairs would be a repudiation of all that we claim to stand for, that the terrorists so misguidedly thought they could dissuade us from practicing: the freedom to pursue our lives navigated by the pole star of our conscience, free from tyranny and fear.
This thread has been spun by the hearts of humans, filled with good and evil, to create a fabric we cannot unravel. This, because we are human beings. But because I am a human being I will no longer spend this day wallowing in fear and sadness. I hope that my morning of sipping tea and quiet meditation on the notion of being human serves as a rejection of evil and hate in the world. Because I no longer hate the terrorists. I do not subscribe, and never will subscribe, to their warped notions of what this world should be. It is those ideas I would hate, if I could find the energy to continue hating.
I will not hate them, any longer, because hating them only validates their view of us. But hate is what they brought. Hate is the food they wished us to swallow. I, for one, have had my fill of hate.
I am a hungry man, to be sure, but it is love upon which I must feed.
27 August 2011
It Ain't Easy Being Mahayana
Wasn't that what Kermit really meant?
Ah...probably not. Maybe. I don't know. It could be that our little green frog friend was more prescient than he knew. I was singing that song recently, but 'green' wasn't the word that I was looking for during my day. The world, it seems, wants too much from me and I don't know if I can maintain my composure.
It may have been the cars on the road what made me think it.
Events in my life over the past decade have changed me, at least a little. I have striven to be more patient, tolerant, understanding and compassionate. The increase in this learning rate jumped when my daughter was born, and then increased sharply within the last three years.
But, still, I gripe. I curse. I question the motives and intelligence of my fellow human beings on a far too regular basis. I cannot seem to break the habit. This troubles me, because to maintain the cynicism and 'worldiness' that passes for social aptitude in this modern world is increasingly beyond my pale. I can do it. But it degrades me and exhausts me.
I know because of the irritation I feel at the idiocy I witness on the road, the overbearing demands of a service oriented industry (in which service sometimes is confused with 'servitude'), the numbing over stimulation of a 24/7 news/entertainment complex, the sheer restlessness of highly populated areas always under construction...
Increasingly I feel disconnected from that modern life, because of the crassness, vapidity and anxiety it cannot seem to do without.
Gah. Look what I have written. Sometimes, dear readers, I see my words, know them to be a reflection of my mind, and I cannot escape the notion that I am a foolish man. Foolish, maybe, because I expect the world to be something other than what it is. If only, if only, I could tell you what it should be.
Then, perhaps, enlightenment would be close behind.
Ah...probably not. Maybe. I don't know. It could be that our little green frog friend was more prescient than he knew. I was singing that song recently, but 'green' wasn't the word that I was looking for during my day. The world, it seems, wants too much from me and I don't know if I can maintain my composure.
It may have been the cars on the road what made me think it.
Events in my life over the past decade have changed me, at least a little. I have striven to be more patient, tolerant, understanding and compassionate. The increase in this learning rate jumped when my daughter was born, and then increased sharply within the last three years.
But, still, I gripe. I curse. I question the motives and intelligence of my fellow human beings on a far too regular basis. I cannot seem to break the habit. This troubles me, because to maintain the cynicism and 'worldiness' that passes for social aptitude in this modern world is increasingly beyond my pale. I can do it. But it degrades me and exhausts me.
I know because of the irritation I feel at the idiocy I witness on the road, the overbearing demands of a service oriented industry (in which service sometimes is confused with 'servitude'), the numbing over stimulation of a 24/7 news/entertainment complex, the sheer restlessness of highly populated areas always under construction...
Increasingly I feel disconnected from that modern life, because of the crassness, vapidity and anxiety it cannot seem to do without.
Gah. Look what I have written. Sometimes, dear readers, I see my words, know them to be a reflection of my mind, and I cannot escape the notion that I am a foolish man. Foolish, maybe, because I expect the world to be something other than what it is. If only, if only, I could tell you what it should be.
Then, perhaps, enlightenment would be close behind.
23 July 2011
If I Were To Write The Truth...
...what would I say? The truth is sometimes easy to say, this I know. I do believe that some easy truths are best reserved for certain ears only. These are truths that preserve their power for being known by the fewest number possible. There are truths only to be known to doctors, lawyers and lovers.
There are truths that are harsh, so harsh that to utter them is to rend the fabric of life. These "unavoidable facts of our existence" can rip us apart, but they shouldn't be avoided. Putting it off too long can mean the difference between merely being beaten and utter implosion.
There are truths, the ones we should spend more time on, that are so beautiful that they can only be shared with fewer and fewer people, perhaps obtaining utter completeness when shared only between two people. These, too, should not be avoided. Share them as soon as possible, with another.
As cynical and skeptical as I can be, I nurse within my heart a desire for truth. I don't often let on that I believe that a major reason why we as human beings are on this planet is to share love, which I fancy sometimes to be the only Truth that really matters.
Shh. Don't tell anybody...but the Truth is, this cynical heart of mine really does believe in the truth of Love. I'm a softie that way.
And if anyone gives me any guff about it...I'll punch 'em inna head. With love, of course.
There are truths that are harsh, so harsh that to utter them is to rend the fabric of life. These "unavoidable facts of our existence" can rip us apart, but they shouldn't be avoided. Putting it off too long can mean the difference between merely being beaten and utter implosion.
There are truths, the ones we should spend more time on, that are so beautiful that they can only be shared with fewer and fewer people, perhaps obtaining utter completeness when shared only between two people. These, too, should not be avoided. Share them as soon as possible, with another.
As cynical and skeptical as I can be, I nurse within my heart a desire for truth. I don't often let on that I believe that a major reason why we as human beings are on this planet is to share love, which I fancy sometimes to be the only Truth that really matters.
Shh. Don't tell anybody...but the Truth is, this cynical heart of mine really does believe in the truth of Love. I'm a softie that way.
And if anyone gives me any guff about it...I'll punch 'em inna head. With love, of course.
24 April 2011
23 February 2011
"All God's Children Got Hemoglobin"*
I admit, I'm plumb wrung out. This winter has taken the measure of me. I'm not in that "The Shining" frame of mind I was in last year (remember the 38 inches of snow in one wallop? I do. Grrr.), it's not that wound up. No, this winter, it's a global feeling of running out of gas. There's been a lot of change, upheaval and such in the fair Republic of Gumbolia in the past 365, and I am most certainly not a clocker. I'm tired in body and mind.
When I get in this frame of mind, my view of humanity tends towards more jaundice than usual. The antics and yammerings of human beings, great or small, tend to get even deeper under my skin, plucking my last damn nerve like it was the Devil's banjo. Through gray-tinted glasses, the peeps, they bug me.
In all candor, I yell a lot more on my commutes. I mutter, and comment on others' shortcomings, real and imagined. It's a reflex action, one I am hard pressed to damp down when fatigue has unlatched the gate that keeps my reptilian, brutish self safely in its pen.
This troubles me, because at heart, I am not a ill-tempered lout.
Today was not an easy workday. No terminal crises, but plenty of petty stresses and problems that wouldn't stay solved. I left the office in bad humor, trailed by a little black cloud swirling over my head. When I arrived home, I treated myself to the luxury of a beer before dinner, carefully imbibed while slumped on the couch to take in a little news.
Not the best way to lighten up a bad day, I know, and I was all set to start fuming and hurling epithets at the parade of idiocy on the tube. But that's not what happened.
What happened was a terrible earthquake in New Zealand, with the city of Christchurch front and center in the disaster reporting. So many buildings fallen, so much damage and the victims! All those people killed, injured and missing...The videos were painful to watch, with the smoke, rubble and blood.
Something else I saw was a quiet story about yesterday being the 46th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, a man whom I regret to say I do not know nearly enough about. I do know this: he was a human being who made some mistakes but also had some big realizations, and tried to change some things much bigger than himself. He believed in people making things better for themselves, even when that meant telling the truth and atoning for for one's mistakes. And for that, somebody murdered him.
Taking all of this in really took the starch out of me. Perspective granted.
I understand that disasters happen, and people can be vicious; none of that is new information. But sitting there and trying to wrap my head around the enormity of the one and the evil of the other, I flashed on one thing for certain: all God's children got hemoglobin, and it is up to us to keep it from being spilled.
*I borrowed this from "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. A terrific work of science fiction (on my top ten all time favorites list), it is also one of the best anti-war novels I have read.
17 February 2011
Gaddafi in Flames
Glass of tea, bowl of soup,
TV news chatters across the table
against a 'tsk tsk' and a 'mmm, mmm'
A cough, full of crackers, unintended guffaw,
the talking head intoning like a deejay:
"Here's an image of Gadaffi in flames"
Kaleidoscopic: to eat dinner, watch nations
begin their meltdown, yet thinking to myself
"That's a great name for a band"
TV news chatters across the table
against a 'tsk tsk' and a 'mmm, mmm'
A cough, full of crackers, unintended guffaw,
the talking head intoning like a deejay:
"Here's an image of Gadaffi in flames"
Kaleidoscopic: to eat dinner, watch nations
begin their meltdown, yet thinking to myself
"That's a great name for a band"
14 February 2011
Love Is A Giant Stone Buddha Face...
...that I hope and fear may start talking to me.
It's Valentine's Day, and if there is a word to describe how I feel about it this year, I have yet to discover it. I suppose the ancient Greeks may have had a word for it, presuming they had known about Valentine's Day as we know it. That, I'm sure, is not possible.
Of the many emotions and states of mind available to human beings, love is truly universal and maybe the most mysterious. How can so many of us experience it, and still not have a clear understanding of it? I can speak with confidence as to its effects, but as to its ability to manifest in ones' life? No, not really.
I only know its ecstasy when it has been present, and its agony when it has disappeared.
I was planning on an essay about the raw power of love, but the ideas never quite gelled. Then, I thought a poem about the incandescence of passion, its ability to empower, might be in order. I even crafted what I thought would be a most powerful phrase I would use, but something held me back; that poem isn't ready to yet be in the world.
So I was at a loss. A loss of how to 'splain what I want to 'splain, that is, until serendipity in the form of song painted me a picture. I have the following on disc, and I guess I listened to it at just the right time. The song is Farewell to Saint Dolores, by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer*. The title below is linked to the audio clip on their website:
So I was at a loss. A loss of how to 'splain what I want to 'splain, that is, until serendipity in the form of song painted me a picture. I have the following on disc, and I guess I listened to it at just the right time. The song is Farewell to Saint Dolores, by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer*. The title below is linked to the audio clip on their website:
"can you stay until tomorrow, there is no one here to save,
can you stay until tomorrow, there is no one here to save"
so spoke our lady of eternal sorrow
from the shelter of her cave
in a carriage of white linen, in her bed beneath the stairs
in a carriage of white linen, in her bed beneath the stairs
she took me to the jesse house of women
and sanctified me there
i remember yellow curtains, and her long hair hangin down
i remember yellow curtains, and her long hair hangin down
and the ageless face that witnessed me for certain
when my own could not be found
if you see my saint dolores, tell her love from brother john
if you see my saint dolores, tell her love from brother john
when the judas moon breaks o'er the virgin forest
i'll be down the road and gone
I posted the entire song lyric, because of its completeness as it related to the illumination of my thoughts. I couldn't find a way to excerpt any one passage, and still have it make sense.
Assuming that it does make sense. I'm not intentionally being opaque, but I have to approach this cautiously and and from the sides. When I last heard the song, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I shivered slightly. Everything that had been roiling around in my head, regarding love platonic and romantic, and my current situation vis-à-vis love, was crystallized by that song. It made sense to me on so many levels. I can only hope it makes sense to you, dear readers, as well.
Even if it doesn't...it is still one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Which is, perhaps, an apt definition of love.
*Dave and Tracy (http://www.daveandtracy.com/) are in my top ten favorite singer/songwriter duos. For a slightly different take on love, check out the lyrics to "Tanglewood Tree", also by them on the album of the same name (which includes the song I quoted above). Between his amazing artistry with lyrics and her sweet voice, and their talent with instruments, they have created some of the most lyrical, beautiful works I believe I have ever heard. Dave passed away rather suddenly back in 2002, but Tracy has carried on quite well in his memory and in her own right. He certainly won't be forgotten...and I continue to dream I'll write something 'Dave-worthy' someday.
13 February 2011
Love Bomb
What do you really think of love do you know do you know I'm not sure I know because I have been thinking about it long too long way too long
and it occurred to me I still don't know how could that be after all these years? Maybe maybe its because I didn't understand it then and I don't now but back then I didn't know I didn't understand, you dig it?
Good good I knew that you could so dig this my pretties tonight I had the flash the realization the kick in the cerebrum that if I were to try writing what I really think of love
oh my god my head might explode or my heart burst and yours might too (though I doubt that I suspect yours is stronger than mine) but what I do know is this:
I had love and then it slipped away and that makes me wonder if my grasp was weak,
or love too strong,
or me just unlucky,
and maybe love was a bomb that I could not defuse and it blew up in my face to scatter me to the wind,
or maybe love was a bomb that I should have let explode, catching me in the fallout of grace and the dust of being wanted by someone...swept away by the overpressure of knowing
I
am
love(d).
and it occurred to me I still don't know how could that be after all these years? Maybe maybe its because I didn't understand it then and I don't now but back then I didn't know I didn't understand, you dig it?
Good good I knew that you could so dig this my pretties tonight I had the flash the realization the kick in the cerebrum that if I were to try writing what I really think of love
oh my god my head might explode or my heart burst and yours might too (though I doubt that I suspect yours is stronger than mine) but what I do know is this:
I had love and then it slipped away and that makes me wonder if my grasp was weak,
or love too strong,
or me just unlucky,
and maybe love was a bomb that I could not defuse and it blew up in my face to scatter me to the wind,
or maybe love was a bomb that I should have let explode, catching me in the fallout of grace and the dust of being wanted by someone...swept away by the overpressure of knowing
I
am
love(d).
08 February 2011
American Peace Dream
The America in which I want to live
isn't a game
or a commercial
or the latest app
It isn't slow motion breasts
or toothpaste sex,
nor is it cheesy puffs or
trucks as penis enhancers
The America in which
I want to live
is not life as a game
or a commercial, or a war
No, the America in which
I want to live lets
you be you, me be me,
and your neighbors be themselves
in peace
isn't a game
or a commercial
or the latest app
It isn't slow motion breasts
or toothpaste sex,
nor is it cheesy puffs or
trucks as penis enhancers
The America in which
I want to live
is not life as a game
or a commercial, or a war
No, the America in which
I want to live lets
you be you, me be me,
and your neighbors be themselves
in peace
30 January 2011
Call to Arms
Oy. I came home and realize that I must write, yet again.
This blogging thing. It has its own reality, yes?
I had an epiphany, dear readers, tonight while chatting with the ladies behind the bar.
I have written of many things here on this, my blog. Tell me, dear readers, what have I not written of? What can I write about, that I have not yet addressed?
And yes, this is a request of you. Send me a topic or idea you would like me to write about.
This blogging thing. It has its own reality, yes?
I had an epiphany, dear readers, tonight while chatting with the ladies behind the bar.
I have written of many things here on this, my blog. Tell me, dear readers, what have I not written of? What can I write about, that I have not yet addressed?
And yes, this is a request of you. Send me a topic or idea you would like me to write about.
01 January 2011
21 December 2010
Blogjam: Redux
(Author's note: This post was supposed to up after the other Blogjam piece. I was gobsmacked by the photo, so I ran that instead. It's all cut from the same cloth, though, so hang with me...because I don't want to hang by myself!)
I apologize, dear ones, for the interruption in my Winter Poetry Slam, but a Muse of a different sort has taken the reins, and I cannot still my tongue.
'Zounds, I must be channeling an Elizabethan libertine.
Not really. But I cannot escape this fascination with formal language, even when I want or need to swear. And I need to swear a lot. Or I think I need to swear a lot. Feckin' language...
Yestereve, I wrote of the unbloggable. Judas Priest, is that even a word? Does it matter? Do you care? I'm not sure I do. I suppose I should. After all, I am the Great Pretender when it comes to language and the written word. The basic problem is that I loathed the study of English when I was a younger Gumbo, enmeshed in the tentacles of 'Publick Education, for the bettrement for the younge minds of our Society'...
I hated rules, I guess, even though you have to know what the rules are before you can break them. I guess I felt in my heart, although I had not the courage to say so, that I did not want to follow rules.
So, where was I? Oh, yes, unbloggable. Things are still at that point. To borrow from the military, the situation on the ground remains the same. The difference tonight, dear readers, is that I have had an adjustment in perspective, courtesy of some friends and their lives, topped off with a good libation.
Does this solve their/my immediate problems? No, of course not. What it does do is bring me up short, pulls me back from the precipice, and gives me some time to catch my breath. Every time I have the good fortune to have someone share with me that which makes them human, I am by turns mystified and gratified. I have not often felt that I am human enough to truly "get" other people, but this state of affairs has become increasingly rare as of late. For that I am also grateful.
Was it Woody Allen who said that "90% of life is just showing up"? Much truth in that. I have become increasingly interested in it as of late. It helps me feel human. It helps me understand people, something at which I have never excelled, at least in an emotional sense.
Am I making sense? I hope so. Even if I am not, I hope you find this of value. After all, what I write here, in this state of unbloggability, is nothing less than an honest attempt to confirm my membership in the human race. Whether I like it or not, that is something I want and need. It is a major motivation for me to keep this blog alive.
I apologize for being so obtuse and elliptical. This fullness of heart is new, strange and wonderful for me. Eventually, my big head will get itself around the idea that I am okay with the notion of being...human.
I apologize, dear ones, for the interruption in my Winter Poetry Slam, but a Muse of a different sort has taken the reins, and I cannot still my tongue.
'Zounds, I must be channeling an Elizabethan libertine.
Not really. But I cannot escape this fascination with formal language, even when I want or need to swear. And I need to swear a lot. Or I think I need to swear a lot. Feckin' language...
Yestereve, I wrote of the unbloggable. Judas Priest, is that even a word? Does it matter? Do you care? I'm not sure I do. I suppose I should. After all, I am the Great Pretender when it comes to language and the written word. The basic problem is that I loathed the study of English when I was a younger Gumbo, enmeshed in the tentacles of 'Publick Education, for the bettrement for the younge minds of our Society'...
I hated rules, I guess, even though you have to know what the rules are before you can break them. I guess I felt in my heart, although I had not the courage to say so, that I did not want to follow rules.
So, where was I? Oh, yes, unbloggable. Things are still at that point. To borrow from the military, the situation on the ground remains the same. The difference tonight, dear readers, is that I have had an adjustment in perspective, courtesy of some friends and their lives, topped off with a good libation.
Does this solve their/my immediate problems? No, of course not. What it does do is bring me up short, pulls me back from the precipice, and gives me some time to catch my breath. Every time I have the good fortune to have someone share with me that which makes them human, I am by turns mystified and gratified. I have not often felt that I am human enough to truly "get" other people, but this state of affairs has become increasingly rare as of late. For that I am also grateful.
Was it Woody Allen who said that "90% of life is just showing up"? Much truth in that. I have become increasingly interested in it as of late. It helps me feel human. It helps me understand people, something at which I have never excelled, at least in an emotional sense.
Am I making sense? I hope so. Even if I am not, I hope you find this of value. After all, what I write here, in this state of unbloggability, is nothing less than an honest attempt to confirm my membership in the human race. Whether I like it or not, that is something I want and need. It is a major motivation for me to keep this blog alive.
I apologize for being so obtuse and elliptical. This fullness of heart is new, strange and wonderful for me. Eventually, my big head will get itself around the idea that I am okay with the notion of being...human.
12 December 2010
Every Light My Love
"Pine or fir?" following her eyes
Then she looked at me to say
"Pick the one you like" and smiled
So fir it was, on top of the car
Rode home with windows open,
Just a bit with cords stretched taut
While she sang doggerel, softly,
sanding down the edges of my soul
Electric jewels strung across green tips
Porcelain doll hands carefully place an orb,
as if she were hanging up my heart;
She likes it, pronounces it "Pretty",
and I pronounce it Love.
Then she looked at me to say
"Pick the one you like" and smiled
So fir it was, on top of the car
Rode home with windows open,
Just a bit with cords stretched taut
While she sang doggerel, softly,
sanding down the edges of my soul
Electric jewels strung across green tips
Porcelain doll hands carefully place an orb,
as if she were hanging up my heart;
She likes it, pronounces it "Pretty",
and I pronounce it Love.
18 November 2010
Blessings of the Rain
Sitting at the table, reading something, can't remember what, but does it matter? No, what matters is the sound of the rain, that soft sizzle of drops on pavement interrupted by the slow sound of torn wrapping paper as a car drives down the street. Funny how a sound, a moment can be a life saver, give you focus pull you out of the grips of whatever it was what had its claws wrapped around your ankles and dragging down into the deep.
Thank God or Allah or Yahweh or Krishna or Buddha (in no particular order) for that, for the simple gift of rain on a lonely midweek night. Another one in a long string of lonely ones. But hey, stop that, cut it out right now, yeah? Weren't thanks just offered for the rain? Yes, they were, of course, because the rain is beautiful when it falls like that: just enough to give life without washing everything out in a flood.
Looking out the window into the diamond-studded dark on the streets, the glints and twinkles of sodium glare and headlights coruscating down the street. The headlights bring hope, but the taillights, well, the taillights always seem kind of sad. Something getting away, leaving, moving on. And there has been too much of that.
But the rain sound, it grounds the soul, and maybe the rain puts a damper on things...but the soul sometimes seems born of the rain of love. The soul knows this, it responds to love like a desert wildflower in a gullywasher. Bloom, baby, bloom, soak in that life-giving water and bloom while you can. Sink the roots, grow the leaves and flower as you will.
Whether that be for a night, a month or once in a lifetime...bloom.
The walls of the house filter out a lot of the noise, mute the sounds, soften them like Miles Davis on "Kind of Blue". Music and rain, the good metaphors for the feelings, the awakening that once lived here. The awakening like God coming back to a long-abandoned chapel set alone in a far-away field. God in the chapel, and in the heart of the lucky passing herdsman who took refuge in the dust and decay to get out of the raging storm.
This was love. This is what the heart knew, blazing brilliant, turning the rain to steam as it fell. Now, the sound of the rain is the memory of love gone on walkabout. The sound of the rain on the pavement brings a weary sigh and a knowing smile, small on a mouth still aching under phantom kisses that once were real.
The mouth smiles, and for once the lips don't tremble, fighting back tears. It smiles, and whispers a small prayer of thanks to the rain, for allowing remembrance of past fortune...and hope for future joy.
The rain, it is a blessing.
Thank God or Allah or Yahweh or Krishna or Buddha (in no particular order) for that, for the simple gift of rain on a lonely midweek night. Another one in a long string of lonely ones. But hey, stop that, cut it out right now, yeah? Weren't thanks just offered for the rain? Yes, they were, of course, because the rain is beautiful when it falls like that: just enough to give life without washing everything out in a flood.
Looking out the window into the diamond-studded dark on the streets, the glints and twinkles of sodium glare and headlights coruscating down the street. The headlights bring hope, but the taillights, well, the taillights always seem kind of sad. Something getting away, leaving, moving on. And there has been too much of that.
But the rain sound, it grounds the soul, and maybe the rain puts a damper on things...but the soul sometimes seems born of the rain of love. The soul knows this, it responds to love like a desert wildflower in a gullywasher. Bloom, baby, bloom, soak in that life-giving water and bloom while you can. Sink the roots, grow the leaves and flower as you will.
Whether that be for a night, a month or once in a lifetime...bloom.
The walls of the house filter out a lot of the noise, mute the sounds, soften them like Miles Davis on "Kind of Blue". Music and rain, the good metaphors for the feelings, the awakening that once lived here. The awakening like God coming back to a long-abandoned chapel set alone in a far-away field. God in the chapel, and in the heart of the lucky passing herdsman who took refuge in the dust and decay to get out of the raging storm.
This was love. This is what the heart knew, blazing brilliant, turning the rain to steam as it fell. Now, the sound of the rain is the memory of love gone on walkabout. The sound of the rain on the pavement brings a weary sigh and a knowing smile, small on a mouth still aching under phantom kisses that once were real.
The mouth smiles, and for once the lips don't tremble, fighting back tears. It smiles, and whispers a small prayer of thanks to the rain, for allowing remembrance of past fortune...and hope for future joy.
The rain, it is a blessing.
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