Lately I have been a little lost among the long stretches of the unknown. That vast and empty country in which there are no others like me, in which my prayers circle the canyon and are returned unchanged.
There is a line in a song sung by Emmylou Harris, who is a genius, that is perhaps the most honest and true of all the lines in all the songs sung. The lyrics speak her heartbreak after the death of Gram Parsons, to which she reveals that "the hardest part is knowing I'll survive." Oh, boy. Surviving means moving on and moving on means giving up and giving up means letting go of that which I want the most.
I cannot possibly know what lay in waiting before me, here on the plateau or on the canyon floor, or in the wind that sometimes whistles right through me as if I were an afterthought of the atmosphere. But I do know (most of the time) that within the absurdity of love there is a speck of something so blindingly beautiful that every material aspect of life becomes invisible. Oh, boy.
Picture is my own of Dead Horse Point, Utah, 2005.
5 comments:
"the hardest part is knowing I'll survive." Tomorrow is never what we imagine it to be. We are never who we imagine we will be.
You have the gift of saying what you mean; and conveying it too.
I've heard the saying, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" but I'm not sure stronger is what it makes you. Some part of you dies when you give up that which you want the most. What's left and what's to come builds on the scar tissue. Not stronger then, just different.
Don't let yourself forget those blindingly beautiful moments...
hmmmm, if i had bought into the extreme despair that embraced me when i felt the most broken i would never have found the glorious joy in store for me a few years later. who knew?
"Buying" into something means that I agree to the capitalistic commodification of feelings, love, and the conditions of humanity. These are not not things, which means that the value of which should not be determined by society. Now, how freeing would it be to let go of needing to buy in to all of that!
Post a Comment