05 December 2008
as I settle into something new, here's something from the archive
Some say life is nothing but a spiral, and that after each round you can look back at what lies below, behind. And you never again reach the beginning of a circle, rendering closure impossible. They say that this is what aches so much, nostalgia is a powerful sentiment, and releases the most destructive, most creative, most enigmatic feelings.
It is raining, November moves in with its characteristic chill, I am trapped inside the house, the cat is resting on the heater, paws sprawled and eyes closed. Outside some people are passing with their umbrellas, one red, the other black with white dots. I can hear their voices muffled through the window. I like their inaccessibility, the mystery of their lives is a perplexing charm, a fascination of the familiar, yet unknown. It's what attracts me to watching places like Oxford Street from the warmth of coffee shops. So the umbrella people would be relating their moving spirals to each other, creating interpretations of their lives as literature, filling each item as a symbol of a million feelings, that linger on, some recycled, built into the spiral, others left to rot, slowly collecting dust, sometimes looked at from the distortion of the distance.
And so they say.
But they could be relating stories about the now, weaving a pattern of descriptions valid only for what is observed now. The colours, shapes, light... relevant for the moment, significant in the current of movement. Items, attributes, observations all do generate feelings, but those are fleeting and feeble like petals carried off by some wind. So letting go of the stories of life is part of the practice, treasuring the mystery of experience all the while, and in that sense, they are nothing but perfect circles that must be released like soap bubbles.
One by one, shimmering beauty, in all sizes. Watching them float off in a windy night, or silent sunny morning, with them releasing that feeling of loss, for they cannot come back, cannot be touched again. They would break. (which is proven - only last month I was chasing soap bubbles at a gathering of friends, many of them spraying a fine mist of soapy water into our faces at the attempt to catch them)
So memories are my dearest shimmering bubbles before a dramatic sky. And I smile at their beauty every day, treasure the memory of their existence... while weaving new patterns of descriptions into an endless cloth which is magically released into millions more bubbles, shining and shimmering in their breathtaking beauty. ¶ 2:17 PM
It is raining, November moves in with its characteristic chill, I am trapped inside the house, the cat is resting on the heater, paws sprawled and eyes closed. Outside some people are passing with their umbrellas, one red, the other black with white dots. I can hear their voices muffled through the window. I like their inaccessibility, the mystery of their lives is a perplexing charm, a fascination of the familiar, yet unknown. It's what attracts me to watching places like Oxford Street from the warmth of coffee shops. So the umbrella people would be relating their moving spirals to each other, creating interpretations of their lives as literature, filling each item as a symbol of a million feelings, that linger on, some recycled, built into the spiral, others left to rot, slowly collecting dust, sometimes looked at from the distortion of the distance.
And so they say.
But they could be relating stories about the now, weaving a pattern of descriptions valid only for what is observed now. The colours, shapes, light... relevant for the moment, significant in the current of movement. Items, attributes, observations all do generate feelings, but those are fleeting and feeble like petals carried off by some wind. So letting go of the stories of life is part of the practice, treasuring the mystery of experience all the while, and in that sense, they are nothing but perfect circles that must be released like soap bubbles.
One by one, shimmering beauty, in all sizes. Watching them float off in a windy night, or silent sunny morning, with them releasing that feeling of loss, for they cannot come back, cannot be touched again. They would break. (which is proven - only last month I was chasing soap bubbles at a gathering of friends, many of them spraying a fine mist of soapy water into our faces at the attempt to catch them)
So memories are my dearest shimmering bubbles before a dramatic sky. And I smile at their beauty every day, treasure the memory of their existence... while weaving new patterns of descriptions into an endless cloth which is magically released into millions more bubbles, shining and shimmering in their breathtaking beauty. ¶ 2:17 PM
