2-4
And so we turn for home, in a car still not quite warm. He climbs into my lap and very quickly falls asleep, as if to say the hard part of today is over. My mind races, my reflexes though are unresponsive, and we nose along at the same speed, as if I were not having these thoughts at all. I think about a million things, about how it still hasn’t fully fallen upon me that the gray hairs I see in the mirror are not temporary, are not so much just a stage as they are a passage. A betrayal of the body that the mind has failed to acknowledge, and there will be more to come, I fear. Comfort is a good thing, as is peace, and even though these are disjointed thoughts I never wanted to find myself in a position where I would be willing to accept small victories. But that’s what life seems to be, acquiescing increasingly meager positions in a losing war, under the guise of dignity, and wisdom.
I find myself struggling with the fact that we are too absorbed in childish things to appreciate our formative years. When all the world is curious and we in our youth are surrounded by a cast of characters as honest and sincere and vital as one could ever hope to find. My heart sinks further still when I think of those in the world who never got even that much out of life. But I’m still not quite sure who the true poor bastards are in this case, those toughened early against life’s traps, or those like me who woke up late, raised on fairy tales.
Just as youth is wasted on the young, only a fool could ever be in too much of a hurry to get to a place he should know better than to ever want to be.
And we’ve gotten back finally to something familiar, the two of us. And though the trappings of youth invariably fade, love always remains. There are rules to most any game, this one called life of course being the most nuanced, and cruel. But to live in a fashion so as to avoid being hurt is more akin to death than anything else. Invariably life's limitations dictate that we’ve got no choice, but to love earnestly, and honestly. We will lose what we love, the things we covet most will be taken away from us some day, but not the affinities, and not the memories, and never the desire. Love is the heart beat, is the last light we see, is the most memorable of all sunsets. These are the things we keep, time, as it will, can have the rest.
I find myself struggling with the fact that we are too absorbed in childish things to appreciate our formative years. When all the world is curious and we in our youth are surrounded by a cast of characters as honest and sincere and vital as one could ever hope to find. My heart sinks further still when I think of those in the world who never got even that much out of life. But I’m still not quite sure who the true poor bastards are in this case, those toughened early against life’s traps, or those like me who woke up late, raised on fairy tales.
Just as youth is wasted on the young, only a fool could ever be in too much of a hurry to get to a place he should know better than to ever want to be.
And we’ve gotten back finally to something familiar, the two of us. And though the trappings of youth invariably fade, love always remains. There are rules to most any game, this one called life of course being the most nuanced, and cruel. But to live in a fashion so as to avoid being hurt is more akin to death than anything else. Invariably life's limitations dictate that we’ve got no choice, but to love earnestly, and honestly. We will lose what we love, the things we covet most will be taken away from us some day, but not the affinities, and not the memories, and never the desire. Love is the heart beat, is the last light we see, is the most memorable of all sunsets. These are the things we keep, time, as it will, can have the rest.
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