(no subject)
God knows we learned the hard way, all about healthy apathy
Last night, final night of the ski trip, four of us were in bed (J, S, E and me) but we were not ready for sleep. We began to speak of love and loss, and the special kind of loneliness bred by each. The things about which we once philosophized we now reflected upon, testing old adages against the weight of our experiences. Does time heal all wounds and dull all memories, do nice guys finish last, is the ladder theory true. S said many revelatory things. I had not known the depth of his wounds before last night, or how much they resembled mine. "But after all that's happened, I think I still agree with Shakespeare," he whispered at one point. "I still agree with Shakespeare... better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."
We formed all our sad thoughts and longings and fears into words and drenched the night with melancholy. Four lonely souls bearing their souls in the dark, sympathetic but ultimately unable to resolve eachother's hurt. I am learning that sharing pain neither dilutes nor rids it, but it is undeniably therapeutic. There was a special intimacy to the night that I want to remember forever. It made me think of this beautiful poem:
Great Things Have Happened - Alden Nowlan
We were talking about the great things
that have happened in our lifetimes;
and I said, "Oh, I suppose the moon landing
was the greatest thing that has happened
in my time." But, of course, we were all lying.
The truth is the moon landing didn't mean
one-tenth as much to me as one night in 1963
when we lived in a three-room flat in what once had been
the mansion of some Victorian merchant prince
(our kitchen had been a clothes closet, I'm sure),
on a street where by now nobody lived
who could afford to live anywhere else.
That night, the three of us, Claudine, Johnnie and me,
woke up at half-past four in the morning
and ate cinnamon toast together.
"Is that all?" I hear somebody ask.
Oh, but we were silly with sleepiness
and, under our windows, the street-cleaners
were working their machines and conversing in Italian, and
everything was strange without being threatening,
even the tea-kettle whistled differently
than in the daytime: it was like the feeling
you get sometimes in a country you've never visited
before, when the bread doesn't taste quite the same,
the butter is a small adventure, and they put
paprika on the table instead of pepper,
except that there was nobody in this country
except the three of us, half-tipsy with the wonder
of being alive, and wholly enveloped in love.
*
happy new year guys.
Last night, final night of the ski trip, four of us were in bed (J, S, E and me) but we were not ready for sleep. We began to speak of love and loss, and the special kind of loneliness bred by each. The things about which we once philosophized we now reflected upon, testing old adages against the weight of our experiences. Does time heal all wounds and dull all memories, do nice guys finish last, is the ladder theory true. S said many revelatory things. I had not known the depth of his wounds before last night, or how much they resembled mine. "But after all that's happened, I think I still agree with Shakespeare," he whispered at one point. "I still agree with Shakespeare... better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."
We formed all our sad thoughts and longings and fears into words and drenched the night with melancholy. Four lonely souls bearing their souls in the dark, sympathetic but ultimately unable to resolve eachother's hurt. I am learning that sharing pain neither dilutes nor rids it, but it is undeniably therapeutic. There was a special intimacy to the night that I want to remember forever. It made me think of this beautiful poem:
Great Things Have Happened - Alden Nowlan
We were talking about the great things
that have happened in our lifetimes;
and I said, "Oh, I suppose the moon landing
was the greatest thing that has happened
in my time." But, of course, we were all lying.
The truth is the moon landing didn't mean
one-tenth as much to me as one night in 1963
when we lived in a three-room flat in what once had been
the mansion of some Victorian merchant prince
(our kitchen had been a clothes closet, I'm sure),
on a street where by now nobody lived
who could afford to live anywhere else.
That night, the three of us, Claudine, Johnnie and me,
woke up at half-past four in the morning
and ate cinnamon toast together.
"Is that all?" I hear somebody ask.
Oh, but we were silly with sleepiness
and, under our windows, the street-cleaners
were working their machines and conversing in Italian, and
everything was strange without being threatening,
even the tea-kettle whistled differently
than in the daytime: it was like the feeling
you get sometimes in a country you've never visited
before, when the bread doesn't taste quite the same,
the butter is a small adventure, and they put
paprika on the table instead of pepper,
except that there was nobody in this country
except the three of us, half-tipsy with the wonder
of being alive, and wholly enveloped in love.
*
happy new year guys.