“There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.” ~ Greta Garbo

Moon Rise over Cultus Mountain, Skagit County, WA
by Scott Terrell (AP)

                   

“Will I ever write properly, with passion & exactness,
of the damned strange demeanours of my flagrant heart?” ~ John Berryman, from “Monkhood”

Saturday, late afternoon. Sunny, humid, mid 80’s.

It’s been a rough week. I started a regular post last Saturday and wiped it. Started another one on Sunday. Wiped that too.

Perigree Moon behind Angels of St. Isaaks Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Russia
by Dmitry Lovetsky (AP)

Did manage to go to some great poetry readings, though. This year, I finally convinced Brett to attend a few of the events at ODU’s annual Literary Festival. In its 35th year, it’s one of the longest-running literary festivals in the country. He was only disappointed by one presenter and loved the other three. I went to two, wanted to make it to one on Thursday, but just couldn’t. As a result, though, I have discovered two new poets, both of whom I will be writing more about at another time.

I’ve been mulling over a myriad of things, beginning to think that I’ve reached conclusions, solutions, only to end up more confused and scattered. These are the things occupying my thoughts lately:

• Will Alexis ever learn how to accept her role as a mother?
• Will Brett go to New Zealand, and if so, will her ever come back? Will such a journey help him to find that which he seeks?
• Will we all make it through the next few months?
• Will I leave the house in the morning only to return to it hours later to find Shakes dead?
• Will Tillie continue to have unexplained seizures?
• Will I ever come out of this funk?
• Will I ever have just one day in which I am not torn up by guilt, fear, and regret?

This, and so much more . . . A person could go well and truly mad from too much pondering.

“Sometimes
melancholy leaves me breathless.” ~ Mary Oliver, from “Sometimes”

My melancholy always deepens in the fall, which is conflicting at best as autumn is my favorite season, but it is also the season of my deep regret and my keenest losses. So many decisions were made in autumn that changed my life forever. You know Frost’s two roads? Well, is it possible to have stood at the fork in the road a hundred times? A thousand? Sometimes, it seems so.

So what characterizes my melancholy? I mean, if I had to describe it, which I have done in the past, just how would I do that? I wonder . . .

Perigree Moon beside San Francisco’s Coit Tower
by Frederic Lawson (AP)

Like Søren Kierkegaard, my melancholy is almost like a living part of me: “I have one more intimate confidant-my melancholy. In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, she waves to me, calls me to one side, even though physically I stay put. My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known, what wonder, then, that I love her in return.”

My melancholy is like . . .

• The deepest blues in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”
• A slow Alison Krauss song, full of longing
• The smell that fills your nostrils when you turn over a pile of wet leaves—earthy and rich
• The dregs of a cup of Darjeeling
• The way it feels when the credits roll at the end of The English Patient
• The haunting sound of the fiddle in the soundtrack to Legends of the Fall
• The way sand feels beneath your feet as it is borne back to the sea by the tide
• The mother in the Dorothea Lange photograph
• The echo of a foghorn across the bay in the still of the night
• The sliver of the waning moon in the nigh sky

“and in the end
when the shadow from the ground
enters the body and remains,
in the end, you might say,
This is myself
still unknown, still a mystery.” ~ Linda Hogan, from “Inside”

You might say that none of those things is particularly sad, and you would be right. My melancholy isn’t sadness. It isn’t depression. It isn’t the bleak dullness of a February morning without snow. Rather, it is an ache, a longing, a yearning, but for what exactly, I still cannot say.

Moon Rises above an Egret Nesting, Wichita, Kansas
by Bo Rader (AP)

The things on my list individually can be beautiful and haunting. Together, they can be overwhelming. Perhaps that’s why I listed them as opposed to piling them all together in a paragraph. Separated by that forced line break, there can be a pause, a moment in which to collect oneself before venturing on.

Am I blathering? Perhaps. Sorry.

At least I’m supposedly in good company. Famous people known for their melancholy? Van Gogh, Abraham Lincoln, John Keats, Ernest Hemingway, Søren Kierkegaard. Notice that list is all male? I think that when famous women were (are?) melancholic, they were categorized as depressed, which is actually not the same thing. Depression can be completely debilitating; whereas melancholy is more reflective. The melancholic can be depressed, but the depressed individual is not necessarily melancholic.

I perused a few interwebs articles on melancholy (academic as opposed to cultural), and most assign a few clear characteristics to the melancholic. On the plus side, they are talented, creative, idealistic, and loyal. They like lists (no kidding) and charts, and they pay attention to detail. On the other side, though, they can be perfectionists; they procrastinate, often spending more time planning than doing. They tend to remember the negatives and have a low self-image, and they have a deep need for approval.

Really? No, really? Hmm . . .

“I have in me like a haze
Which holds and which is nothing
A nostalgia for nothing at all,
The desire for something vague.” ~ Fernando Pessoa, from “[I have in me like a haze]” (trans. Richard Zenith)

Did you know that melancholy literally means black bile (Greek, melas (black) + khole (bile) = melancholia)? This definition comes from the ancient characterizations of personalities according to the four humours (The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (Gk. melan chole), yellow bile (Gk. chole), phlegm (Gk. phlegma), and blood (Gk. haima), and each corresponds to one of the traditional four temperaments. A humor is also referred to as a cambium(from Wikipedia and lots of other sources)). Just a bit of history.

Full Moon behind a Mosque in Amman
by Ali Jarekj (Reuters)

Of course, we don’t go around any more telling people they have too much black bile or too much blood in their constitution, but maybe we should. I mean, the corresponding personality traits (sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic) are pretty much spot on. The sanguine individual is an impulsive dreamer, the choleric an aggressive leader, the phlegmatic quiet and relaxed, and the melancholic introverted and creative.

All I know is that my black bile makes me not people-oriented and less outgoing. It also makes me withdrawn and vengeful. And I’m still fairly certain that I would have been persecuted as a witch.

“I am light honed
To a still point in the incandescent
Onrush, a fine ash in the beast’s sudden
Dessication when the sun explodes.” ~ Wole Soyinka, from “Around Us, Dawning”

So, this is where I am now: My melancholy defines me in so many ways:

• I have so many things that I want to do, but I never seem to do them, just plan them.
• I spend an inordinate number of hours contemplating things, the whys and wherefores.

  

  Moon Shines behind the Minaret of Mohamed Ali Mosque in Cairo
  by Asmaa Waguih (Reuters)

• Essentially, I don’t like people. I love humanity and its wonderful diversity, but most people irritate me.
• But those I like, I like with a fervor. Those I love, I love with all of my being.
• One of the articles said that melancholics can be bad parents because they have such high expectations, and I do, have high expectations, that is. But not for my children to have fame or fortune, rather, that they have happiness and contentment, two things that have eluded me most of my years
• I don’t like to be wrong, and it took me years, nay, decades, to learn how to admit when I was wrong, and I am ashamed to say that it took me far too long to learn how to apologize and truly mean it.
• Because I live so much inside myself, I am not self-deluded, but I am self-critical and self-deprecating.
• I live in a state of guilt. I’m not sure if this is necessarily my melancholic humor, or just my life.

As one particular site pointed out, “One feature that makes melancholy an aesthetic emotion—like that of sublimity—is its dual nature. There are negative and positive aspects in it which alternate, creating contrasts and rhythms of pleasure.” I suppose this duality is what compels me to try to define that which truly cannot be defined.

However, the site that I liked the best had a nice list of positives and negatives about the four kinds of people, and one thing that it listed really kind of made me take notice: the melancholic can be “moved to tears with compassion.” I never knew that was a trait of melancholy. I always thought that because I cried at commercials, wept at others’ misfortune, ached at injustice, that it was just my soft heart betraying me once again.

Oh, and one more: The melancholic seeks the ideal mate. Fortunately for me, I believe that I have found him.

More later. Peace.

In the mood for the moon, the big, beautiful moon.

Music by Grizzly Bear, “Deep Blue Sea” (From Dark Was the Night CD*)

*Dark Was the Night is the twentieth compilation release benefiting the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. Featuring exclusive recordings by a number of independent artists and production by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, the compilation was released on 16 February 2009 (UK) and 17 February (US) as a double CD, three vinyl LPs, or as a digital download.^[6] John Carlin, the founder of the Red Hot Organization, was the executive producer for the album. The title is derived from the Blind Willie Johnson song “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”, which is covered on this collection by the Kronos Quartet (from Wikipedia entry on CD).

                     

Wavelength

They were sitting on the thin mattress

He’d once rolled & carried up the four floors

To his room only to find it covered nearly all

Of the bare wood

Leaving just a small path alongside the wall

& between them was the sack

Of oranges & pears she’d brought its neck

Turned back to expose the colors of the fruit

& as she opened a bottle of wine

He reached over to a tall stack of books

& pulled out The Tao & with a silly flourish

Handed it across the bed to her   she looked up

& simply poured the two squat water glasses

Half-full with wine & then she

Took the book   reading silently   not aloud

As he’d assumed & suddenly he felt clearly

She knew the way

Two people must come upon such an understanding

Together of course but separately

As the moon & the wave remain individually one

~ David St. John

 

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“Let us sculpt in hopeless silence all our dreams of speaking.” ~ Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

 

                   

“rush of pine scent (once upon a time),
the unlicensed conviction
there ought to be another way
of saying
this.” ~ Paul Celan

Thursday evening. Cold. Incipient migraine.

William Blake once said that “in the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.”  I found a card once that depicted a series of doors, and the Blake quote was printed at the top. I had that card on my collage for years.

I think that we very often go through doors without a clear conception of what may be lying on the other side. In our attempts just to move through life, we open a door, hoping that some kind of truth will be waiting on the other side. And that truth may indeed be there, but it just isn’t the truth that we were anticipating.

Does that make any sense?

“There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself—
Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.
Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.
They are my medium.
The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.

A gray wall now, clawed and bloody.
Is there no way out of the mind?” ~ Sylvia Plath, from “Apprehensions”

Writing in Old Notebook (ca. 1884)

Let me back up and attempt to explain: Each year, in the months of November and December my nuclear family undergoes a change. The change is not sought, nor is it necessarily wanted, but without fail, it rears its head and begins to bite little pieces out of our souls, mine and Corey’s, that is.

You see, in November I try so hard to bring to the forefront of my mind the face of my father and the face of my daughter. Both gone for years, I hope that by being able to conjure the lines of their faces, the shapes of their eyes, their noses, I will be able to regain some semblance of closeness to them.

It is, undoubtedly, an exercise in pain. I know this, but the knowing does not stop me. For the entire month of November, whether or not I realize it, I am a walking time bomb, tormented by slights—real and imagined. My family, being keenly aware of this, takes pains to compensate for my temporary insanity, and I try very hard not to lose too much of myself in my heart-madness.

December 5th passes (my father’s birthday); I begin to emerge, and I try to reset my mind, to move into holiday mood. I do this because my childhood love of Christmas is one thing that I cling to in the hopes of recreating a Currier & Ives holiday that probably never happened. Nevertheless, in my hopes of sharing smiles of happiness with my family on Christmas morning, I use the holidays as my means of escaping the brutal realities of November.

The problem with this scenario? Corey hates Christmas. I don’t really know all of the reasons why, but he has never shared in my childlike (childish?) fondness for all that December encompasses: the lights, the smells, the trees, the gifts, the presents, the appearance of Venus in the sky, brighter and seemingly nearer than any other time of the year. For me, it’s not the spirituality but rather the idea of family, and sharing, and beauty.

For Corey, I don’t know what it is other than something he would rather skip. In fact, Corey becomes downright desolate in December, and that desolation on the heels of my November decline inevitably leads to friction, misunderstanding, and distance.

“While I was looking the other way your fire went out
Left me with cinders to kick into dust
What a waste of the wonder you were

In my living fire I will keep your scorn and mine
In my living fire I will keep your heartache and mine
At the disgrace of a waste of a life” ~ Kristin Cashore, “Dellian Lament,” from Fire

Quill and Writing Desk

The overlapping of these two emotional falls never bodes well. It is as if we are two pieces of tinder, small enough to be borne about by the wind, but infused with enough power to ignite a fire of immense proportions. Trust me when I say that this is not a good thing.

For the past two weeks Corey has been one raw wound.  He snipes, and with my perceived wounds, I retreat into a sullen silence. Today was no exception.  So here I sit feeling bitterly sorry for myself and wondering what I hope to achieve by writing all of this. Hence, the Blake quote about the known and unknown and the doors in between.

When two people are together, no matter how much love is between them, the moments of discord loom larger than the moments of harmony. That is a simple fact. I think that the more love there is, the more potential there is to be hurt. But the very nature of love as a double-edged sword is what draws us to it, what makes us yearn for it, and what makes us fear it. Because of this, some people close themselves off from the potential to be wounded, and then there are those of us who rip off our sleeves, beat our chests, and yell, “more!”

Love is inherently insane, and its slaves are doomed to be made fools again and again.

“I sought the peak of prudence, but I found
the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart,
and my own thirst for bitter truth and art.” ~ Federico García Lorca, from “Stigmata of Love” 

Selection from Old Manuscript

It is now 3:30 a.m., early Saturday morning. The incipient migraine hit me full force while writing this post, and I have not been able to return to it until now. I should probably go back and try to make more sense of what I wrote before, but quite frankly, I just don’t care. That I am not asleep is a reflection not only of the effects of the migraine but also of the deep depression that crept upon me in the last 48 hours.

The depression is an amalgamation of many factors that have been building over the past few weeks. When Corey asked me a few nights ago just why I was so prickly, I took his question to heart and made myself do some searching within. These are the things that have been bothering me:

My mother, with whom I lived during the time immediately after her fall and during her recovery, had a sort of mantra with which she filled our days together: She was on a fixed income (lost count of how many times I heard that), and paying her bills was of such import to her that she tried to get out of her sick-bed only a few days after falling so that she could make out her checks. As I mentioned in previous posts, I ended up doing her bills for her in the interim, so I have more than a passing knowledge about her income and her financial obligations, which are, for the most part, just the costs associated with day-to-day living: utilities, food, insurance. She is not well off, but neither is she in the poor house.

So when she began to talk of buying another car so that she could give Alexis her 2002 Honda Civic, I listened/only half-listened. I had heard it all before, and she changed her mind daily, depending upon whether or not she was angry with Alexis. This is how my mother operates. Not to mention the fact that I did not want to think about  the complaints that the coming months would bring if my mother took on a car payment, how she is barely making it. I know: I sound like the bitch that I am.

Admittedly, I was also not necessarily pleased with the idea of my mother giving my daughter yet another car (third since my father died), mostly because Alexis is still not working and not making any attempts to find employment. I thought that such an act on my mother’s part would only continue to reinforce Alexis’s less than responsible behavior. But what do I know as I am only her mother . . .

The short of it is that my mother ended up buying herself a new Honda Accord and gave Alexis the Civic so that she (Alexis) can look for a job. I tried to stay out of the whole process as much as possible, which is pretty much impossible in matters involving my mother as she is a master at guilting me into doing things that I would prefer not to do. I acquiesce because it is easier and because I carry an inordinate amount of guilt in matters concerning my mother.

I decided to put my foot down in the only way that I thought made sense: I declared that Corey and I would not be footing the bill for Alexis’s car insurance, which we have been doing without any recompensation from her for quite a while now. Corey declared that I was being petty, which led to some of the discord to which I referred above.

“Nothing adds up.
It all adds up. How long will this storm go on?” ~ Raymond Carver, “Stupid”

I have never thought of myself as petty, so the word hurt terribly, especially coming from Corey. Is it petty that right now I have problems of my own that consume me? That right now, I find that my empathy, my sympathy, my whatever-pathy is lacking? More guilt. 

But what was and is really bothering me? So much and so little, as usual. Alexis, 26, no job, no apparent ambition, coasting and casting about and living off the kindness of those who love and care for her. ‘She has problems,’ I am reminded, words that I have spoken myself on occasion. I despair of what will become of her; I know that whatever that is, it is beyond my doing now. That realization  is hard as the love that I bear for my children is so powerful, so all-consuming.

My instincts always are to protect, to help, to soothe. But is this not a disservice in some ways? Have I not contributed to my daughter’s sense that someone will always be there for her? And yet, I never want her to feel the despair that I have felt. I never want her to feel as if she has no one in the world who is there for her as I have felt.

As a parent, will I ever reach a point at which I do not feel both responsible and burdened? Perhaps this time of the night is not the best time to try to unravel these mysteries.

Yet I wonder if I will ever reach a point in my life in which melancholy will not be able to envelop me so completely. I feel as if I am deep inside a crevice, looking up towards a sky that I know is there but cannot reach. I have no ulterior motive—no arrière pensée, if you will—for revealing the turmoil which I feel.

I long to have someone to call in the middle of the night who will be able to discern just from the timbre of my voice that while I may feel impenetrable, I can still be reached. I miss having a best friend.

Enough already. I have written myself into a corner. As I have said before, it is all too much and not enough, and to continue pick at the wound will only leave a scar.

More later. Peace.

Music by Glass Pear, “My Ghost” (what an incredible voice)

                   

All the True Vows

All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.

There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don’t turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.

Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen

nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.

By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,

it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.

Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you

and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,

that way you’ll find
what is real and what is not.

I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.

Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years

in my own voice,

before it was too late
to turn my face again.

~ David Whyte, from The House of Belonging

“I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, is the only sensible way to love.” ~ Francoise Sagan

April Snow-Covered Mountains over Portage, Chugach National Forest, Alaska by Janson Jones

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Sepia Docks (Wikimedia Commons)

Very melancholy today. I sense the stirrings of an impending fall. The days before a fall are always so precarious—I feel out of sorts but for reasons that I cannot quite discern. My senses are heightened; loud sounds unnerve me, and food does not taste exactly right. In other words, lots of things that are non specific, that I cannot quite grasp, hovering just beyond the periphery. 

I have wondered many times in my life how people who are even-tempered make their way through the days, never falling into the depths of despair, never flying on the wings of mania. I have wondered what my life would have been like if I had been blessed with an even temper, how much I might have missed if that had been my reality instead of this reality. 

I chose Janson’s picture of the mountains over Portage because I find it so incredibly intriguing. It’s spring snow, but because of the sepia tones, it could be sand. The picture itself undulates with its shadows and patches of light, which reminds me of my life, and how it moves in ripples, little peaks, sometimes deep vallies. And then again, moving through my life often feels like walking on sand: the slow trudge to make headway without losing my footing, the strain of climbing against grains that fall away with nothing to hold onto, the slow slide when going downhill. 

“Oh soul,
you worry too much
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Josef Sudek Still Life (w/sepia tones), 1954

I have been thinking about love for the past few days. Love in general. Love specifically. Motherly love. Passionate love.

Why do some people love so passionately while others are more reserved? Is it a matter of control, as in loving too much is giving up control? Do men love differently than women? In a relationship, are women the ones who love more? You know what I mean—there is always one person in the relationship who loves more than the other person. I think that being able to recognize this and accept it is a sign of maturity. 

Perhaps.

I mean, when you are young and newly in love, you want the other person to love you just as much as you love him or her, and nothing less will do. I think that once you have had some experience, you realize that no two individuals love in the same way, ever. But loving in the same way is not the same as loving less. I think that loving less reflects an unwillingness to give over the self to another, and this, I think, is directly tied to trust. 

As in Do I trust myself enough to lay myself bare to this other person? Do I trust this person enough to lay myself bare, to risk everything? It’s a tricky path, one that has no clear markers. 

“Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.” ~ Hafiz of Persia, The Gift

In looking back over past relationships, I realize that I used to fall in love easily, but that I did not stay in love unless there was an equity in the relationship. In my relationship with the pathological liar—which happened when I was quite young—my mind constantly sent warning signs that my heart overruled. It was not until I was willing to face the truth that I was able to break the cycle. 

Solitary Bench (w/sepia tone)

In my relationship with my ex, my love grew and adapted over the years, which is how it should be in a long-term relationship. However, my mind sent me warning signs that I chose to ignore: Yes, he drank, but was it really too much? Who says what is too much? Was I really the one who always took care of the details, or was I making too much out of things? I think that in the end, I needed the break as a result of exhaustion as much as anything else. I was bone-weary from fighting constantly, and the love I had within me felt drained and tainted. 

Now, with Corey, I am aware of many differences from past relationships, one of the main being that I feel a sense of protection that I never felt with anyone else, and I am not sure if that is because I have changed enough to let someone protect me, or if Corey’s protection allowed me to change. Another aspect that differentiates our relationship is the tenderness that Corey shows me. It is blissful to feel such tenderness.

That being said, there is still a part of Corey that I cannot touch, a part that he holds back in reserve for himself. I try not to see that as a statement about our relationship, but sometimes it’s hard. 

“Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.” ~ Octavio Paz

I understand why he would feel a need to protect himself. I understand the deep wounds that he has. But understanding and accepting, unfortunately, are not the same. To reveal the self completely is to open the door to vulnerability. Few people will willingly walk towards vulnerability. It’s much too frightening. And then there is the sense that if a person holds something back, in reserve, then he can never be completely broken. 

Paris Street (ca 1925, w/sepia tone)

Yet if I am to be completely truthful, then I must admit that I long for him to be as open with me as I am with him, which makes me feel as if I am expecting something unreasonable. I mean, love is not ownership. Two individuals who love each other do not have to be completely immersed in each other in order for their relationship to succeed. In fact, it is usually better if each person has outside interests, things to occupy time away from each other. But this separateness can be taken to the extreme. 

I think of my own parents whose relationship was supremely dysfunctional, and I am amazed that I have ever been able to have a healthy relationship given what I witnessed. My father spent more of their marriage at sea than at home. When he retired from the Navy, he couldn’t stand being on dry land, and they couldn’t stand that much togetherness, so he became a merchant marine. My mother had her own interests, and my father had his. They only began to do things together when they were older. Still, my father was unfaithful numerous times, and my mother tolerated it, and I don’t understand that at all. 

My ex and I spent the first part of our marriage doing things together and the last part of our marriage with separate friends, going out separately, and it was rare that we came together to do something as just a couple. I hated that. Corey and I enjoy each other’s company, which is a good thing as we have spent the last two years practically living in each other’s skin, which is problematic all by itself. 

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” ~ Zelda Fitzgerald

White Rose (w/sepia tone)

In the end, though, this is what I believe: Love is not necessarily patient and kind and all of the other things Corinthians says that it is. Love is complex and intense. It is so much like dancing naked in the rain. It is risk and faults and failures. It is learning to love sushi and learning to appreciate things in life you may have never considered before. Love is as solid as it is ephemeral; it can burn like a dragon’s fire and soothe like the coldest mountain stream. Love takes courage, and it can be terrifying in the way it consumes. Love demands respect and in its deepest essence it hearkens to our finest natures. 

The human heart, both fragile and strong, is only amplified by love. And while the heart is a solid vessel, in its abstract form, it is an empty vessel, waiting for the elixir of life to fill it to satisfaction. Handled without care, the human heart can break into a million pieces, while at the same time, its ache can be taken away with a simple phrase. As Ondaatje says, “the heart is an organ of fire.” 

We can no more choose who we love than we can choose our natures. If we are lucky enough to find that true companion, the one who will take our hearts and hold them close, keep them safe, and refill their occasional emptiness, then we are fortunate indeed. 

Love is hard. Life is hard. To expect otherwise is to be naive. 

More later. Peace. 

Music by Sarah Bareilles, “Gravity”