“How did I know it was really love?”

And the answer that rose bidden but unexpected from within was:

“Because of how much it hurt.”

 How beautiful to realize, at this pass, that just because it doesn’t hurt does not mean it isn’t love.

I will not explicate the details, but I will say that the most potent feeling I have been coping with in the last few days is this one. That manages to be quite a feat, considering it is in competition with grief, a heart that aches for the woes of my dearest ones, and intense romantic giddiness.

I try not to indulge in the feeling often. To do so is communicated most often as a request to be smited with examples of one’s frailty; to be humbled by force via circumstance. But in the face of what has passed in the last little while, I find I simply cannot rise above, cannot be patient and gracious, cannot do else but feel rage and impotent disgust.

It is sometimes deeply satisfying to say “I told you so,” and sometimes, being right is the worst feeling ever. I can think back on knowing what I have known, having my worst suspicions confirmed, and feel only the frustration with not having pushed harder, insisted more firmly, demanded that I be heard.

And only in this aftermath, while I try to sort through what might come along next, do I have a presence of mind to remember that it is far more important now, to do right rather than to be right.

Everything Hits At Once

And are they ever right about that.

In this case, and for a change, a considerable portion of events have been good. Really good. One might even say good without precedent. Others have been breathtaking and heartbreaking, and so it all falls together in the way that it will.

My mother, who I love very much indeed, has just lost her longtime lover and companion. He was as ornery a cuss as ever lived. He loved to argue, and most of all, to get a rise out of people. When I first met him, I knew already about his penchant for starting verbal tussles. I resisted his every salvo, ignored his every prodding, until at last he looked me square in the eye and called me Cupcake.

There. Was. Rage.

Ultimately, I decided this wasn’t the worst thing to have someone call you, and I learned to accept his pet name with better grace. He still teasingly called me that, the last time we spoke. He and I were never close, but I know he cared very much for my mother, and even more than that he took care of her, which is something that virtually no one else in all of her life has done. She has always been the breadwinner, the bacon bringer. John loved my mother, at her prickly, vain, harsh, and passionate worst, and in all the days they were together, she felt loved; well and truly, for the first and only time in all her life. I am very sorry indeed that she has lost him.

Other people, close and dear to me, are going through transitions of similar import. They are profound in their mystery, wondrous in the ambient power they exert. Those are not my tales to tell. But they work on me, in their way.

And then my own tumbling; this weekend quite literally. Still waiting to hear if my tailbone is just bruised, or if I managed to crack it. This all entwined with discovery and concordance, bliss and laughing-to-the-point-of-pain.

Amidst it all, I try to keep my eyes open to these wonders; my senses alive to the magic of this moment in time, which is even now, racing away.

v.tr.
To correct beyond what is needed, appropriate, or usual, especially when resulting in a mistake.

American Heritage Dictionary

Also, meaningful;

An over-compensation of a mechanical fault during the performance of a motor skill.

I am full of myself. Vain. Arrogant. I have unwarranted self-confidence and an insufferable tendency to boast. Even the very exercise I am now engaged in, all too closely mimics mental masturbation, eh?

Ah, me.

But it is unquestionably the case that this is the result of a swerve, wild and desperate, that I have not yet gotten a handle upon. Meant to avoid remaining bedraggled and bruised, pitiable and pathetic, lost in self-loathing. It was a coping mechanism, not so unusual, to try and repair damage untold, as dealt by indifferent parenting and unenviable circumstance. But like most things meant to help us cope, if we rely on them too heavily, they create a host of new problems which must then be confronted; mastered.

I believe my braggodocio springs in no small part from an odd quirk of mine that developed as a result of my “mechanical fault.” While quite small I was functionally blind. I could see shapes and light and color, but nothing was in focus, and there was two of everything. It made it nearly impossible for me to navigate in the world. I wasn’t totally sightless, so I didn’t rely as heavily on my other senses as I could have. I was constantly running into things, falling down, tripping, and generally hurting myself repeatedly through my stubborn determination to get where I was going, under my own steam and at top speed.

My older sister, and mother, took to shouting warnings at me when I was about to run into trouble. Brandy particularly took it upon herself to follow me around and warn me when I was about to bump into something, when there was danger I might fall, or if there was something I could trip over in my path. As noble as her efforts were, I have noticed that it has instilled in me a need to hear something, before I can truly absorb it. I do not trust the evidence of my other senses quite so thoroughly. Additionally, it has created a tendency to rely on the assertions of other people altogether too much when evaluating my self-worth, circumstances, or correct course of action.

So, I say what I want to believe, that I can hear it and thus accept it as true. I say it to other people in hopes they will agree with me and give the declaration greater credence. My assertions are almost always uncertainty waiting to become assurance.

And I will not claim to have ever even tried humility on for size. I think I bridled at the notion of it, seeing it as somehow in conflict with my favorite virtue Truth. To fail to pronounce my strengths, as well as my many, sundry faults, would be to deny the truth of who and how I am. When I encountered the trait in people I admired, I always found it baffling:

“But, you’re awesome!! Why aren’t you telling everyone in earshot??”

Because it turns out, most people don’t require this kind of mechanism to believe good things about themselves. They just sort of do. They prefer to demonstrate their worth by their deeds, quietly and with grace.

Someone recently mentioned to me that their approach to life was to underpromise and overdeliver. I saw firsthand evidence of how lovely it could be to be on the other side of that course. The surprise and sense of discovery were profoundly satisfying. And it dawned on me that I have denied anyone who has ever met me the pleasure of that sort of revelation. I am so quick to tell them all there is to know about me, they have no chance to see and decide for themselves. This is especially important when I am forced to admit that not everything I “know” about myself is true for everyone else.

And I am tempted, for the first time, to try this humility thing after all. To pull the wheel slowly towards center, and proceed…

traditionally meant the condition of having sensation (including the feeling of pain) blocked or temporarily taken away.

Current recipie: podcasts, shopping, sleep. It has not been entirely effective.

I am aggrieved it feels so necessary.

from www.animalspedia.com

It is hard to let go of our beliefs about how things are. For some reason it is especially hard to do when “the way things are” has been difficult or frightening. We can become so deeply committed to our own point of view that we may not be able to imagine a future where our life could become something entirely different, and in some cases, amazing. We can choose to ensconce ourselves in a set of beliefs about what is that, originally meant to protect us, can leave us in darkness and unable to move. 

There is a common logical fallacy known as the Appeal to Tradition. It hinges on the notion that just because something always has been true that it will continue to be true going forward. Like most fallacies, on first blush, it seems to make sense; things are this way because the events have led them to be thus. Things will most likely proceed as they have, creating the same results. However, this denies a wealth of truth about the nature of the universe and the timbre of the human condition. We are constantly undergoing change at the cellular, psychic, emotional, and intellectual level. Even if we do not feel these changes during the course of our everyday lives, we are literally and in every sense entirely different people at the end of our lives than we were at it’s beginning.

I am noticing, as I proceed with this project, that most of the quotes I am coming across in my random, haphazard way are about dealing with change. I think this is partially because most of the self-reflective traditions, such as religion and philosophy, are concerned with trying to help people cope with change in a positive way. But I also believe in synchronicity; the concept of meaningful coincidence. I believe that for the first time in a long time, I am ready to undertake tremendous changes. I know I should and do expect to see great rewards as a result of this process. I am also experiencing a fair amount of anxiety and trepidation about these changes, for even though I have not been entirely content for some time, neither did I feel resilient enough to risk the dangers of an untested flight.

I suspect it is no accident that I am coming across these pieces of truth that assure me that though these changes can be frightening, or can literally mean the end of life as I know it, that life as I know it hasn’t always been worth the living. That life as I have never known it offers possibilities for joy that I am eager to discover, if only I am brave enough to break through the truths I have embraced to protect me, and fling myself into an unknown of limitless potential.

Words & Music By Billy Joel

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I’ve held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It’s just as well for all I’ve seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you’re the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That’s if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you’re the only one who knows

Those songs which contain words and phrases that spell out the aching particulars of however you experience life and beauty and pain and truth.

We all have this soundtrack.; the songs that bring us immediately to a place or time or feeling. Without preamble or fanfare, we are fully and utterly lost to that moment, that emotion. And sometimes, they make no sense or they make a sense that only your insides can interpret. They are often profoundly unglamorous and leave us raw and exposed, but in the best possible way.

And today with my speakers up louder than I can usually have them at work, I heard again the line from a song that most says LOVE to me while I listen. It is contained in a song about stumbling upon love while not yet free to have it. It is not a scenario I have ever found myself in, yet it cries out with the most beautiful poignancy what I most feel… and want to feel from someone else, about love.

There have been others: they tell a story about the way my concept of love has changed

Ghost by The Indigo Girls “Of all my demon spirits I need you the most”

I always felt like this song was about being in love with the idea of someone, rather than their actual person. About idealizing someone past the point of all reason so that you could have no real hope of loving them in actuality. This is something I know well how to do. This was my idea of love when I was a sophomore in high school. It still tugs at me though…

Do What You Have to Do by Sarah McLachlan “And I have the sense to recognize that I don’t know how to let you go”

Some part of me is convinced that love has to hurt. That it isn’t real if you don’t ache for the lack of the other. Probably too large a part of me indeed. The quality of love I most readily recognize is the sort that causes me to lose myself so completely in the feeling that I become someone else as a result. the person I was before ceases to exist and so, in a very real sense I struggle with the notion of losing anyone I come to truly love, for it would result in becoming Not Me, at least Not the Me I’d been ever since falling in love had made me Someone New. Plus also, I just don’t like to let go.

Steam Engine by My Morning Jacket “Your skin looks good in moonlight, goddamn those shaky knees”

This song was just eerily appropriate for the love I was falling in at the time I first heard the song. I had never had someone so enamored of me as was the boy who was the object of my affection at the time. I had never had anyone speak with such fervor about how beautiful he thought I was; about the effect I had on him with the mere fact of my presence. This was the lesson of being adored as an aspect of love. It was a good lesson.

Crash by Dave Matthews Band “Hike up your skirt a little more, and show your world to me”

Far from being smutty, I find this line to be singularly romantic. It acknowledges the fundamental vulnerabilty inherent in revealing oneself this way. The faith, entire and unblemished, that accompanies such a gesture. It is an intoxicating moment, to feel that trust for someone else, and to feel it expressed toward you as well.

And now…

Challengers by The New Pornographers “Whatever the mess you are, you’re mine”

This, oh this, is what I have come to believe is really what love is about. Not that we do not see, or that we are made perfect by our love, but rather that we are seen, and known, and absolved, and loved nevertheless. I think I like this notion best. It feels truer, and wiser and more likely, when compared to the illusions and self-sacrifice of the past.

And I wonder, as I always do, about the quality of love that others feel. How it is sounded out across their lives. What resonates inside of them and carries them forward on waves of song…

The tiny midnight caravan
Made its way across the black hills
As I watched from a distance
The slow-going glow
Their wandering you know
Made me pine
For the lamplight
Where you lie

If I took you darling
To the caverns of my heart
Would you light the lamp dear?
Would you light the lamp dear?
And see fish without eyes
Bats with their heads
Hanging down towards the ground
Would you still come around
Come around?

I believe in you
In your honesty and your eyes
Even when I’m sloshing
In the muck of my demise
A large part of me
Is always and forever tied
To the lamplight
Of your eyes, of your eyes