Jones Beach, A Sunday in November
Just because eye has not seen
Is no alibi for never peeking.
Because ear has not heard
Is no excuse for not eavesdropping.
There are days like today
To gull-flip a double passport
At the border of small infinities
And stare at shells
That talk out loud
-Catherine Barry
Today is the last Sunday in November for the year, and in twenty-three minutes it will be over. So I'm a little late in sharing this poem. But no matter.
I was first attracted to this poem because its title reminded me of my father-- he grew up in Queens, New York, and spent time at Jones Beach. I've never been there. I picture a gray, wind-whipped seascape, the sand wet and dark, the air cold and unforgiving. Every time I read this that is the image in my mind.
It is the first four lines that captured me when I read them. I don't really know what the author means. Whatever interpretation I make is burdened by the elusiveness of the last four lines. I can't decipher them at all, really. But I like the way they sound. Poetry is as much music as anything else.
Just because eye has not seen is no alibi for never peeking. Because ear has not heard is no excuse for not eavesdropping. Whose eye and ear? Hers, mine, ours? Is she exhorting herself or her reader? Or both? The Biblical reference is clear. But to what end?
I have only amorphous thoughts about her meaning. But the words nonetheless have distinct resonance for me. Something about determination and freedom and opportunity. Small infinities. A contradiction in terms that somehow makes perfect sense to me.
My eyes are fighting me now. They want to close. They don't care that I haven't reached an ending. They betray me.
Mostly I just wanted to share this poem. Kind of for my dad. I went to Mass this evening and he was on my mind there too. Missing him. Missing watching him pray after Communion when I was old enough to understand how much it meant to him. And I would wonder what he was praying for, and wonder what I should be praying for.
Columbus, Ohio. A Sunday in November. Small infinities.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
A Title I Won't Regret
I love to sing. Few things bring me more pure enjoyment than wrapping my voice around a harmony. I appreciate others' beautiful voices. But, at any given moment, I would rather be hearing my own. Not because I think I'm better. Simply because I love to sing.
What does this observation have to do with anything? It has been on mind. Not long ago, I was quite happily sweeping and mopping at my sister's soon-to-be home, serenading the dust bunnies, noticing how a voice sounds ricocheting off the hardwood floors and bare walls of an empty room. Cold and harsh and big. Naturally amplified. So different from the warm, rich textures of a sound-scaped recording studio.
How much, if at all, will it matter to me if I never perform again? Am I okay with saying that part of my life is finished?
Here is the truth: I find letting go hard. And yet in many ways I accept loss without a fight. And that is not just with singing. Many of the best things in my life have just happened. I didn't go looking for the music. The music found me. I welcomed it. I treasured it. I nurtured it. And when it left, I sadly watched it go. But why did I not go out and find it again for myself? Was I lazy? Was I spoiled? Did I conclude that nothing could ever be quite as magical as the experience I had singing with Ron? I suspect so.
And maybe that's fine. Maybe it is true. Things don't always get better. My life has had moments of perfection that cannot be recaptured. The comfort is in knowing that the potential for experiencing perfection is not bound to any one moment or time. It is ever-present. It is perhaps purposefully fleeting. If every second dripped with perfection, perfection would cease to have meaning, would it not?
These last few weeks I have lived in a bit of a parallel universe. I had a chance to carpe diem in one area of my life, and carpe I did. And, as sojourns in the land of fantasy usually are, it was sublime.
The saying goes that life is short. Although I agree wholeheartedly with that observation, I'm not sure that's altogether the point. Whether life feels short or long is relative to the moment in which we are contemplating its passage. I spent a good portion of two Friday nights ago doubled over on my bathroom floor, waiting for the next spasm of vomiting to wrack my body, and time slowed to a tortured crawl.
What I do believe is, long or short, life is singular and, until something ends it, inexorable. I will never get the last three weeks, or the last 42 years, back. There are no do-overs. And I think a good proportion of human happiness can hinge on how we come to terms with that reality. Every day we have the choice of what to do with the hours we are given. And then we have the choice of how to evaluate the outcomes of those decisions.
No regrets. That's an ethos espoused by many. But what does that even mean, really?
I have regrets. I have made some astonishingly poor decisions in my life. Mostly my regrets are for things that ended up hurting not me (or not only me) but someone else. I can't absolve myself of remorse for the choices I've made that created shock waves of consequence for people who deserved better. To do so would be arrogant. Regret is proof of conscience.
What I refuse to regret, however, is letting life, letting possibility, in. Even though I know so well that it can and will end up hurting. If regret is proof of conscience, hurt is proof of hope. Of the capacity to remain open to those moments of fleeting perfection. "It's better to feel pain than never feel at all. The opposite of love's indifference." That's from Stubborn Love by The Lumineers.
Stubborn love. Yes. I'll watch perfection walk away. The perfection of my voice intertwined with another's in song. The perfection of holding another's heart within my own, if only for a week or two of suspended reality. To watch it go is painful. But I will not have regret insult or cheapen the moments of perfection I am given. I do not crave indifference.
What does this observation have to do with anything? It has been on mind. Not long ago, I was quite happily sweeping and mopping at my sister's soon-to-be home, serenading the dust bunnies, noticing how a voice sounds ricocheting off the hardwood floors and bare walls of an empty room. Cold and harsh and big. Naturally amplified. So different from the warm, rich textures of a sound-scaped recording studio.
How much, if at all, will it matter to me if I never perform again? Am I okay with saying that part of my life is finished?
Here is the truth: I find letting go hard. And yet in many ways I accept loss without a fight. And that is not just with singing. Many of the best things in my life have just happened. I didn't go looking for the music. The music found me. I welcomed it. I treasured it. I nurtured it. And when it left, I sadly watched it go. But why did I not go out and find it again for myself? Was I lazy? Was I spoiled? Did I conclude that nothing could ever be quite as magical as the experience I had singing with Ron? I suspect so.
And maybe that's fine. Maybe it is true. Things don't always get better. My life has had moments of perfection that cannot be recaptured. The comfort is in knowing that the potential for experiencing perfection is not bound to any one moment or time. It is ever-present. It is perhaps purposefully fleeting. If every second dripped with perfection, perfection would cease to have meaning, would it not?
These last few weeks I have lived in a bit of a parallel universe. I had a chance to carpe diem in one area of my life, and carpe I did. And, as sojourns in the land of fantasy usually are, it was sublime.
The saying goes that life is short. Although I agree wholeheartedly with that observation, I'm not sure that's altogether the point. Whether life feels short or long is relative to the moment in which we are contemplating its passage. I spent a good portion of two Friday nights ago doubled over on my bathroom floor, waiting for the next spasm of vomiting to wrack my body, and time slowed to a tortured crawl.
What I do believe is, long or short, life is singular and, until something ends it, inexorable. I will never get the last three weeks, or the last 42 years, back. There are no do-overs. And I think a good proportion of human happiness can hinge on how we come to terms with that reality. Every day we have the choice of what to do with the hours we are given. And then we have the choice of how to evaluate the outcomes of those decisions.
No regrets. That's an ethos espoused by many. But what does that even mean, really?
I have regrets. I have made some astonishingly poor decisions in my life. Mostly my regrets are for things that ended up hurting not me (or not only me) but someone else. I can't absolve myself of remorse for the choices I've made that created shock waves of consequence for people who deserved better. To do so would be arrogant. Regret is proof of conscience.
What I refuse to regret, however, is letting life, letting possibility, in. Even though I know so well that it can and will end up hurting. If regret is proof of conscience, hurt is proof of hope. Of the capacity to remain open to those moments of fleeting perfection. "It's better to feel pain than never feel at all. The opposite of love's indifference." That's from Stubborn Love by The Lumineers.
Stubborn love. Yes. I'll watch perfection walk away. The perfection of my voice intertwined with another's in song. The perfection of holding another's heart within my own, if only for a week or two of suspended reality. To watch it go is painful. But I will not have regret insult or cheapen the moments of perfection I am given. I do not crave indifference.
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