You know how some people believe in a before life? You know...that we were all here as something else before we came here as we are now? As with the theory of evolution, which postulates some pretty incredible ideas about how human beings came to be -- think primordial slime -- and with the theology of creation, which postulates the existence and essential power of an extraordinary and supernatural being to create and maintain all life, including human life, there is no "knowing". That feeling of déjà vu that some say is your "before this life" persona sending you messages, may be a psychic footprint brought to the fore of your consciousness, or it may be nothing at all. No matter what the scientists tell you, and no matter what the pastors tell you, we can NEVER KNOW ANY of the things we accept as truth based on "facts" or faith.
What's left is The Vast Unknown. And we human beings do not like The Unknown, because at heart, we fear it. The Unknown wrests power and control away from us, and gives it to other entities, or to chance. Neither sits well with us. I think every act of violence and of hate stems from our basic fear of The Unknown. We try to control events and decide outcomes based on that fear of the Unknown.
But there's also a positive response to that fear. It's love. In the Bible, one Scripture says "Perfect love casteth out all fear", including the fear of The Unknown. But loving another requires trust...belief that what lies in the heart of another will reach for and embrace what lies in our hearts. And none of us knows for sure what lies in the hearts of others. We seldom even know all that lies in our own hearts.
What do I know for sure? I know that, as Bob Marley says in his song, "Everything's gonna be all right", because "there is nothing new under the sun", so every problem has a solution, and every cloud a silver lining. And I know that I mustn't let fear of The Unknown stop me from living as fully as I can, or loving as deeply as I should.
The first thing that came to my mind, nerd that I am, when I saw this theme, was this poem by one of my favorite poets of all time, Gerard Manley Hopkins, the poet-priest of Oxford:
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
Then, I thought about the time of year. Yeah, yeah, I know...I'm odd! Ya loves me anyway, so there! My thoughts about spring are these:
1. Oh Lord! Loads of rain...which is fine, as long as I don't have to drive in it, and it doesn't flood the roads and make commuting even more hazardous! 2. Mosquitoes! My kids, especially Mini Me, who has to walk up and down the driveway, wait at the end of it every morning to be picked up and dropped off from school, and will begin to play outside, will be eaten alive!! She has many, MANY scars from mosquito stings -- her arms and legs are speckled with them, and they're ugly! What the heck can I do to make it easier for her THIS year? 3. Carpenter ants! They'll be back with a vengeance as soon as it STAYS above "cold" outside, and I'll be tearing my hair out! Grrr! 4. Flies! ...
Hmmm...this seems to be degenerating into a blog about household pests. This IS my reality, despite the beautiful arrival of cherry blossoms and the promise of warmth and the beauty of summer. The unvarnished truth is that spring in the countryside is the harbinger of pest season...did I forget to mention deer ticks? Oh yeah ... and this year the expectation is that since the ground has thawed sooner, and the creature that normally feeds on them has not had a chance to flourish because of the unnaturally dry winter, deer ticks will be even more prevalent on the ground this year, meaning Lyme disease cases will increase.
Ah, spring!
In deference to those many ones of you who love spring as you see it as the beginning of baseball season, here's a picture, taken on one of my daily passes by there, and a tune...
Valentine's Day is this Tuesday. I know I won't be doing any blogs for it, so this will have to suffice for all I want to say about romantic love, and every other kind. I'm not in a terribly happy frame of mind right now, but thinking about the ones I love brings a smile to my face, and warms my heart.
First, in honor of the genre I write most often in, here's a borrowed perspective on the subject which I find to be very much on the money for me. How about you?
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest, and it opens up your heart, and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you. Then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out, and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like "Maybe we should be just friends" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. But, "Don't hate love!"
Obviously, not all of us experience the second part of this description, but I'm pretty sure all of us have had the first part. And for me, that part was worth all the shivery, trembling uncertainty. Much of what I write comes from that place...it's where I am my most open.
I know the depth of my passions, and who has my heart for all time! I love you!
Next, that love that makes you want to tear your hair out, and grab hold of the loved ones and smoosh them and protect them, even when you want to throttle them. I'm talking about mother love. Or father love, if you're a dad. I suppose, though I cannot know for sure, that fathers share some of the paradoxical quality of this kind of love...the need to nurture even as you wish you could "take them out (of this world) again", to quote Dr. Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) in "The Cosby Show". The love of a parent for a child is no more of an easy emotion than is that between lovers. And those of us who have children share some, if not all of the fruits and frustrations of being custodians of the youth entrusted to us.
My children have my heart, and I miss them when they leave.
Love of children for parents, and of siblings for each other, are a kind of mirror image of that of parents for children. The bond of blood, or familial ties where there is no shared blood, makes all our dealings fraught with the power that such a bond inevitably bestows, whether for good or ill. You know the saying "You can't live with them, and you can't live without them?" That sums up a lot of sibling bonding and love of children for parents. And as we age, and the needs of our parents change, we are often forced to re-evaluate those feelings we may have been holding on to, and to reassess what is truly important in our lives. Growing up changes the feelings between children and their parents and between siblings. Growing older changes them some more.
My parents and my siblings have my heart, even with all the angers and frustrations and fears, because there is also love and laughter.
Last is the love we bear for our friends, those people who, as someone has said, are "the family we choose". That love is almost like that between lovers, except you don't want to make wild monkey love to them -- they are "neutral", neither as close as lovers nor as far as strangers, but possessing the unique perspective of both sides. And the hurt can be as great when things go wrong in a friendship, as the joys can run high when they go right. What would we be without our friends? And how unhappy must those people be who cannot share their hearts with someone as "neutral" as a friend!
All my true friends, and we both know who you are, have my heart.
This has been a rough few days for me, what with my hubby's leaving for Jamaica to bury his mother and reunite with his family there, most of whom he hasn't seen in twenty years. It got me to thinking how I thought I knew how I would feel about his not being here in the house -- I wrote a poem about that -- and how in fact I DO feel...not what I was expecting at all! And that got me to thinking about how long we have been together, as I try to explain these feelings.
We human beings take being together with those we love for granted most of the time, until something happens to threaten the status quo, or to ruffle the smooth surface of our accustomed existence.
Departure, whether by death or planes/boats/trains/cars, is always the thing that makes us stop and wonder, stop and think...stop and fear. We want to be together with others...we NEED it -- well most of us do, anyway!
It's why we come here, isn't it? To be together with people of like mind, with some of whom we forge deep and lasting relationships. Together, we are better than apart. Together, we are stronger than apart. Together, we are safer than apart.
Thank you all who come by often, some of you every day, to be with me, to encourage and tease, and challenge, and argue, and love me. I appreciate your presence much more than I can say. And now, when I feel most emotionally vulnerable, as I contemplate death, I thank you even more for being here...together with me! *BIG HUGS*
Some things that make me smile, in no particular order...
...babies' smiles and chuckles ...my daughter's stories about her experiences in the community theater she works in ...my daughter's stories about the professors and students in her college classes ...my other daughter's laughter ...my son calling me "Mama Chile!" ...music ...my sweetie calling me an endearment ...a good erotic story ...writing that gives me goosebumps ...Michael Jackson's smile
When I am feeling most low, like I was yesterday, and trying to raise my spirits by reminding myself that I have my health, a job, a roof over my head, and the love of my family, music usually soothes my savage emotional beasts. This is a song I listen to that helps ease my mood, brings back my "feisty", and makes me feel alive again...
