Like Valentine's Day and Charlie Brown, to me all holidays serve only to remind me that I am not one of those lucky people. Thanks for the Christmas card, Violet.
As I ooze into my mid-50's, the realities of life are unavoidable at best. At their worst, they are pointing at me and laughing behind my back like all those kids at every new school I was dragged to throughout my young life. When you are young (at least when I was young) I was able to pretty much make up my own story in my mind about how life is or how life should be. But time and age strip off the false veneers worn by all your relatives and all your experiences. They shed, like snakes skins and you are never very sure which was the real thing.
One thing that I have become sure of, is that if you were not loved by at least one of your parents, you will never know love. Not love of self, not love of a companion, forget about love from your family of origin and you will never be loved by the ones you thought for sure would except you, embrace you and call you their own. It just doesn't work that way. When you are raised in a cold, unloving environment, that becomes the worn in path of your life. It is a negative that will suck the blood from you everytme you try to rise above.
However, I did have another revelation last night. As my sister fills in the missing
pieces of the puzzle that is my life; as my daughter continues to
punch holes in my heart . . . I realize now that life really is a
dream. Nothing makes sense, nothing adds up . . . things happen
randomly and some of it is nightmarish. Some of it is beyond our
wildest imagination. But none of it is real. It's all in your head.
It has no relevance really. To be truly happy, you have live in the
moment of the dream and hope that it turns out good. Make up
whatever story you want about your life. It really doesn't matter.
We're all just kind of drifting around, trying to make sense of
things that are senseless. There is no purpose, there is no justice;
not even a true moral compass. It's like an acid trip with things
appearing and disappearing out of your view. All you can do is try
to keep your head in the right place because it will all be over soon
anyway.
On that note, I'd like to leave you with one of my favorite poems by John Hewitt
The Rams Horn
I have turned to the landscape because men disappoint me:
the trunk of a tree is proud; when the woodmen fell it,
it still has a contained ionic solemnity:
it is a rounded event without the need to tell it.
I have never been compelled to turn away from the dawn
because it carries treason behind its wakened face:
even the horned ram, glowering over the bog hole,
though symbol of evil, will step through the blown grass with grace.
Animal, plant, or insect, stone or water,
are, every minute, themselves; they behave by law.
I am not required to discover motives for them,
or strip my heart to forgive the rat in the straw.
I live my best in the landscape, being at ease there;
the only trouble I find I have brought in my hand.
See, I let it fall with a rustle of stems in the nettles,
and never for a moment suppose that they understand.
