Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
It's striking, the way things look so different at night.
Walking down the dirt road that stretches along the curvaceous bay at the end of my street, I noticed that the starlight illuminated much that I missed during the day. The sinuous, reaching limbs of pines and cedars that stretched towards me had an aura of vitality, of mystique, that the sunlight strips away. The waters of the pay, pierced in the center by the moons reflection, beckoned, promising mysteries that the boating activity of the daytime hours eradicates. In the midnight hour, when alone, the night provides us access to our own little world, one that does not, and cannot, exist the next day.
Likewise, the night time has an effect on my thoughts and attitude.
This morning, if my phone had rung, informing me of an incoming call from my father, I wouldn't have answered. Likely, my mind would have been overcome with violent imagery involving myself, him, and some manner of sharp, blunt, and spiked implements of pain. Hours later, and I find myself able to, perhaps not forgive, but accept the person he has become. It would be a lie to say that his betrayal hasn't hurt me, or that it hasn't deeply damaged my relationship with him, but it would be a lie also if I claimed to hate him, or that I felt no attachment towards him.
This morning, if I had been told that my old house in Melrose would go on sale in the next several weeks, I'd have been devastated. Now, the anger and pain has been replaced by some kind of emptiness. I don't hate my father for what he's done to my mom: I don't love him, either. I feel a kind of ache, a longing for the way things used to be, that no amount of my father's bullshit posturing on the phone, or contrived attempts at winning me back will ever succeed in causing me to forget.
At least, though, the night brings with it a feeling that there's something yet to come.
In the morning, knowing that a day of hard-work with little sense of reward lies ahead, it's easy to blow things out of proportion. The end, for all practical purposes, of my life in Melrose would have hit me like an uppercut, flooring me, leaving me angered and bitter. At night, when my thoughts are allowed to stretch, not just to what the next day holds, but the next weeks, months and years, I can see beyond my current relationship with my father, to something that may someday be. Or that might not be.
What the night offers is freedom. A freedom to dream of a time when things are different.
I'm not sure I've ever welcomed that liberty as much as I do now.
Peace and good karma.
Walking down the dirt road that stretches along the curvaceous bay at the end of my street, I noticed that the starlight illuminated much that I missed during the day. The sinuous, reaching limbs of pines and cedars that stretched towards me had an aura of vitality, of mystique, that the sunlight strips away. The waters of the pay, pierced in the center by the moons reflection, beckoned, promising mysteries that the boating activity of the daytime hours eradicates. In the midnight hour, when alone, the night provides us access to our own little world, one that does not, and cannot, exist the next day.
Likewise, the night time has an effect on my thoughts and attitude.
This morning, if my phone had rung, informing me of an incoming call from my father, I wouldn't have answered. Likely, my mind would have been overcome with violent imagery involving myself, him, and some manner of sharp, blunt, and spiked implements of pain. Hours later, and I find myself able to, perhaps not forgive, but accept the person he has become. It would be a lie to say that his betrayal hasn't hurt me, or that it hasn't deeply damaged my relationship with him, but it would be a lie also if I claimed to hate him, or that I felt no attachment towards him.
This morning, if I had been told that my old house in Melrose would go on sale in the next several weeks, I'd have been devastated. Now, the anger and pain has been replaced by some kind of emptiness. I don't hate my father for what he's done to my mom: I don't love him, either. I feel a kind of ache, a longing for the way things used to be, that no amount of my father's bullshit posturing on the phone, or contrived attempts at winning me back will ever succeed in causing me to forget.
At least, though, the night brings with it a feeling that there's something yet to come.
In the morning, knowing that a day of hard-work with little sense of reward lies ahead, it's easy to blow things out of proportion. The end, for all practical purposes, of my life in Melrose would have hit me like an uppercut, flooring me, leaving me angered and bitter. At night, when my thoughts are allowed to stretch, not just to what the next day holds, but the next weeks, months and years, I can see beyond my current relationship with my father, to something that may someday be. Or that might not be.
What the night offers is freedom. A freedom to dream of a time when things are different.
I'm not sure I've ever welcomed that liberty as much as I do now.
Peace and good karma.