"Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration."
So said D H Lawrence - and he was right
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Assuagement
An interesting word and one which I have been contemplating of late.
The process of mitigation
To relieve a burden or stress
To render something less painful
To ease or remove guilt
Literally, from the old Latin, to sweeten.
Interesting!
I have come to see that our burden of loss has somehow been assuaged by all those external agents which affect us: life, time, friendships, family, and dare I say it, work.
It is then something to be grateful for, all those distractions and demonstrations of affection and more which ease the burden of loss and the sense of pain.
What is certain, is, that through all this mitigation, it is still there. I guess we just carry it better now; as though we have learned to wear it well, after a fashion.
I wish yours could have been assuaged in some way.
The process of mitigation
To relieve a burden or stress
To render something less painful
To ease or remove guilt
Literally, from the old Latin, to sweeten.
Interesting!
I have come to see that our burden of loss has somehow been assuaged by all those external agents which affect us: life, time, friendships, family, and dare I say it, work.
It is then something to be grateful for, all those distractions and demonstrations of affection and more which ease the burden of loss and the sense of pain.
What is certain, is, that through all this mitigation, it is still there. I guess we just carry it better now; as though we have learned to wear it well, after a fashion.
I wish yours could have been assuaged in some way.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Feet and Hearts
An áit a bhuil do chroí is ann a thabharfas do chosa thú.
From the Gaelic, which means: "Your feet will bring you to where your heart is."
It makes me think, sweet man, how and why your feet brought you to where they did and where ours might take us now your space is empty.
I said this to a friend recently who has his own existential dilemnas to contend with - the usual; inner chaos, overt and mismanaged direction through work, unfinished business with a woman he once loved and might still love while he had begun to weave his magic and charms on another; bizarre inability to see his own strengths......as I said, the usual.
I got to thinking about how men, in particular, seem to be very very bad at finishing things, ending them, putting ghosts to rest and starting afresh.
I read a theory recently that men, when relationships begin to fail, have a tendency to ignore what is happening until it is too late, until time has been called in one way or another, and then they react - effectively when it is way past salvation. They wrestle and tussle with the erstwhile object of their affection and then don't seem to be able to let go, one way or the other. It is likely that they still maintain some kind of physical relationship, however infrequent, because they think it is the right thing to do, justifying it as some kind of old habit that dies hard, so what the heck - and it just confuses them further.
Women, on the other hand, do their fighting and grieving before the end comes; they battle and tussle with the deaf mute male and eventually, when all their energy is expended, bring things to a close. Generally speaking, then they move on - maybe while reflecting on what they left behind and how it could have been saved but for a minimal communication; and how it might have changed them, educated them, informed them. And of course all those physical overtures left them thinking there might still be something there to salvage; never quite managing to understand the mixed messages from he who could not let go.......
When I read this, and thought about my friend A, I thought about you also - because although your circumstances were different, you both acted in a textbook manner - at least according to the theory:- letting your feet bring you to those familiar places without considering whether your return to those very spots was measured, managed or meditated.
Embroiling yourself again with a person you had left behind; drawn back by obligation and guilt and the belief that the flattery of words of the desperate equated somehow to love. That this futile declaration of need, born out of laziness, fear and fatigue could render you, the man, bigger, taller, more masculine, more of a rescuing hero!! Swoon bloody swoon, and bring on the clowns I say!!
Maybe it and they did - not in my book. I always thought that love was and is a sign of courage and strength; not the manifest forlorn and well-timed looks of one who seeks to depend on you because it is easy, and who seeks to keep you from another whatever the cost simply because they can.
And in both your situations, there was the collusion of family - to engineer a return; through coercion, persuasion, or sheer guilt mongering. And again, you both took the bait, convinced that the manoeuvring was entirely genuine, unplanned and wholly serendipitous.
For smart guys, you certainly showed how naive you both were!
I marvel at how powerful guilt is, and how it renders even the most intelligent and strong amongst the male population weak; and how susceptible it makes you to idle empty words of flattery which massage the feeble ego.
And yet, when you hear those measured assertions of one who would purport to see you as an equal, you could not and cannot reconcile yourself with them. Strange! Strength scares you and obstinacy is misconstrued as loving courage.
In some way, both you and A laboured within the same set of rules; subconsciously I guess.
It makes us that loved you, wonder why our strength and independence were and are not good enough; why our sense of love - based on respect and admiration, could somehow be cast aside so easily when surely it might have brought you more balance and honesty. How perhaps out of self preservation you could hurt those who loved you most.......
It is a conundrum of sorts; your feet can bring you to where your heart is only if you are unfettered by guilt and ego and your eyes have a clear path to navigate.
As Laura Cantrell says:
"She lent her voice, and she gave her heart
And I guess that must've been the hardest part
She figured out exactly what was going on
All the love she had given for a song
And then things unravelled as they usually do
She got her old heart busted up by......number two
Have you forgotten? Have you forgiven?
Tell me are you livin' just a little in your past every day?
Time sure has changed you; it's walked right on by you.
Does it satisfy you to have so little to say?"
And that is the point; for all the battling and railing against the obvious, you boys always have so little to say at the time - or too much, when it is way too late.
It is a futile endeavour - as you showed us dear dear heart.
And so you and your feet just go round in circles, as you well know.
At least that is how it seems.
xxx
From the Gaelic, which means: "Your feet will bring you to where your heart is."
It makes me think, sweet man, how and why your feet brought you to where they did and where ours might take us now your space is empty.
I said this to a friend recently who has his own existential dilemnas to contend with - the usual; inner chaos, overt and mismanaged direction through work, unfinished business with a woman he once loved and might still love while he had begun to weave his magic and charms on another; bizarre inability to see his own strengths......as I said, the usual.
I got to thinking about how men, in particular, seem to be very very bad at finishing things, ending them, putting ghosts to rest and starting afresh.
I read a theory recently that men, when relationships begin to fail, have a tendency to ignore what is happening until it is too late, until time has been called in one way or another, and then they react - effectively when it is way past salvation. They wrestle and tussle with the erstwhile object of their affection and then don't seem to be able to let go, one way or the other. It is likely that they still maintain some kind of physical relationship, however infrequent, because they think it is the right thing to do, justifying it as some kind of old habit that dies hard, so what the heck - and it just confuses them further.
Women, on the other hand, do their fighting and grieving before the end comes; they battle and tussle with the deaf mute male and eventually, when all their energy is expended, bring things to a close. Generally speaking, then they move on - maybe while reflecting on what they left behind and how it could have been saved but for a minimal communication; and how it might have changed them, educated them, informed them. And of course all those physical overtures left them thinking there might still be something there to salvage; never quite managing to understand the mixed messages from he who could not let go.......
When I read this, and thought about my friend A, I thought about you also - because although your circumstances were different, you both acted in a textbook manner - at least according to the theory:- letting your feet bring you to those familiar places without considering whether your return to those very spots was measured, managed or meditated.
Embroiling yourself again with a person you had left behind; drawn back by obligation and guilt and the belief that the flattery of words of the desperate equated somehow to love. That this futile declaration of need, born out of laziness, fear and fatigue could render you, the man, bigger, taller, more masculine, more of a rescuing hero!! Swoon bloody swoon, and bring on the clowns I say!!
Maybe it and they did - not in my book. I always thought that love was and is a sign of courage and strength; not the manifest forlorn and well-timed looks of one who seeks to depend on you because it is easy, and who seeks to keep you from another whatever the cost simply because they can.
And in both your situations, there was the collusion of family - to engineer a return; through coercion, persuasion, or sheer guilt mongering. And again, you both took the bait, convinced that the manoeuvring was entirely genuine, unplanned and wholly serendipitous.
For smart guys, you certainly showed how naive you both were!
I marvel at how powerful guilt is, and how it renders even the most intelligent and strong amongst the male population weak; and how susceptible it makes you to idle empty words of flattery which massage the feeble ego.
And yet, when you hear those measured assertions of one who would purport to see you as an equal, you could not and cannot reconcile yourself with them. Strange! Strength scares you and obstinacy is misconstrued as loving courage.
In some way, both you and A laboured within the same set of rules; subconsciously I guess.
It makes us that loved you, wonder why our strength and independence were and are not good enough; why our sense of love - based on respect and admiration, could somehow be cast aside so easily when surely it might have brought you more balance and honesty. How perhaps out of self preservation you could hurt those who loved you most.......
It is a conundrum of sorts; your feet can bring you to where your heart is only if you are unfettered by guilt and ego and your eyes have a clear path to navigate.
As Laura Cantrell says:
"She lent her voice, and she gave her heart
And I guess that must've been the hardest part
She figured out exactly what was going on
All the love she had given for a song
And then things unravelled as they usually do
She got her old heart busted up by......number two
Have you forgotten? Have you forgiven?
Tell me are you livin' just a little in your past every day?
Time sure has changed you; it's walked right on by you.
Does it satisfy you to have so little to say?"
And that is the point; for all the battling and railing against the obvious, you boys always have so little to say at the time - or too much, when it is way too late.
It is a futile endeavour - as you showed us dear dear heart.
And so you and your feet just go round in circles, as you well know.
At least that is how it seems.
xxx
Friday, 3 April 2009
Persistence
Sometimes, dear John, I think that the only thing that separates me from you is persistence.
I canot say that you did not try; if anything I think you tried way too hard - to engineer, to construct, to contrive, in short, to ensure that everything worked as it should.
What is clear, sweet long-gone-boy-of-mine, is that there are many things which still don't quite work as they should without you here; and it is only our persistence that allows us to keep going, to persist.
Love is a fate resigned, or so the song says and that is what I have come to understand. It is an odd place we inhabit still, that place of resignation; I know now, after much soul searching, introspection and thought that you do exist in memory form, as a part of a life I have already lived. In a sense you are suspended somewhere in between my past and my psyche; and there you shall remain. I know that I have now spent more time without you than with you and I wonder if that means the balance will tip at all, at any time.
I sense that you have deifned me in some way; which I can attest to in many ways. I resist the temptation to be defined by your death dear heart, though there are times when I wonder.
I persist in my desire to keep going, to live, to do all the things you would have done and maybe to take a little bit of you forward. I am not sure that I succeed though.
I notice that my footfall going forward is not as sure and confident as it once might have been; occassionally I feel that life is a bit more of a battle than it should be and I sense that my unfailing optimism has been forever dented by losing you how and when I did.
And that is really all, we persist in spite of these feelings and indeed because of them; fuelled in a way by the hurt we still feel. It does recede and allow us to continue on, to persist.
I guess that is enough to be going on with.
I canot say that you did not try; if anything I think you tried way too hard - to engineer, to construct, to contrive, in short, to ensure that everything worked as it should.
What is clear, sweet long-gone-boy-of-mine, is that there are many things which still don't quite work as they should without you here; and it is only our persistence that allows us to keep going, to persist.
Love is a fate resigned, or so the song says and that is what I have come to understand. It is an odd place we inhabit still, that place of resignation; I know now, after much soul searching, introspection and thought that you do exist in memory form, as a part of a life I have already lived. In a sense you are suspended somewhere in between my past and my psyche; and there you shall remain. I know that I have now spent more time without you than with you and I wonder if that means the balance will tip at all, at any time.
I sense that you have deifned me in some way; which I can attest to in many ways. I resist the temptation to be defined by your death dear heart, though there are times when I wonder.
I persist in my desire to keep going, to live, to do all the things you would have done and maybe to take a little bit of you forward. I am not sure that I succeed though.
I notice that my footfall going forward is not as sure and confident as it once might have been; occassionally I feel that life is a bit more of a battle than it should be and I sense that my unfailing optimism has been forever dented by losing you how and when I did.
And that is really all, we persist in spite of these feelings and indeed because of them; fuelled in a way by the hurt we still feel. It does recede and allow us to continue on, to persist.
I guess that is enough to be going on with.
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