Sometimes I really tire of what I believe is the universal condition. I ache for our illusions to become real. We make our own roads, intending them to go somewhere, the passage easy, efficient, but we know all the while that we are travelling in wilderness, following trails we did not make. We call for true companions, simply decide that someone nearby has to be that companion, desperate from waiting for our true companions to be revealed. But we really know there is no true companion, not like that, not like the inner dream. We take on a sense of humor about all this in order to get along. We go to considerable lengths to deny that suffering is our lot, or else falter in the burden of it.
I struggle to remember how I wanted to be here, argued with my maker to get here. It seems to me so much easier to blame another for my fate.
Here am I, Lord. Walk with me.
The Deer Trail
The woods loom over
the path we take, this deer trail,
wide enough for us
right here, falling
gloom like rain, so little sun.
When I have touched you
like I did today,
walking near enough to, wanting
the feel of your skin
from my hand to heart,
I say I trust you, I trust
this trail, where it leads.
February 24, 2009 11:22 AM
Contraction
1 week ago
Damn.
ReplyDeleteI felt that.
xxx
Do you say there are no 'true companions'? I don't think I believe that. I feel it sometimes, but I don't believe it. I cannot. That would be too much to bear.
ReplyDeletex
Michelle, this question of companions is difficult. That much is obvious. What I know, I have connected twice to someone I thought could be the one. Neither connection lasted. Both contained so much pain that I think I have a broken picker.
ReplyDeleteThe wife I had for twenty years did not come from that kind of inner choosing. Instead she was placed in my path as if God said "go here". I would never be able to say of her that she was the one, my true heart's companion. But she was right for my life, an arranged marriage.
Sometimes I think that I am driven to a particular destiny and that for me to do it I am required to stay single.
How many people do you think find that true companion? At least in this country, judging by divorce records at least half of us cannot find one.
But you are right. I couldn't stand it if this world at least held the possibility of a healthy bond with a true companion.
I think I have a broken picker too.
ReplyDeleteI so do not want to have a broken one but I think that's what I have.
I know the relationships I have had have been for a reason, I know this to be true and I cannot stand to think that that is all there is ever to be.
That the whole entire reason for being here is to bloody suffer mistakes.
I want something else damn it.
Something else.
I need a new picker too, I think mine is bent.
xxx
Isn't it weird that you can kind of know and understand these things and still wind up in the soup??
ReplyDeleteWhat is that?
Do you know, psalm 42 is my favorite psalm.
ReplyDeletetrue companions.....
ReplyDeleteVery rustic metaphor for this idea. Well put and a good read. Makes me think, for sure.
ReplyDeleteI think it's denial :)
ReplyDeleteJozien, thanks.
ReplyDeleteGhost, Bambi and Thumper, exactly.
Gray, I am glad I know the difference between solitude and being abandoned.
Michelle, certainly it is in the denial neighborhood. Unfortunately for me, and for some others I have witnessed, clearing out the denial is only part of the story. You can take the next drink, for example, knowing exactly what is going to happen.
I love the magickal feel of animal trails. Following them, I can't help feeling like an impostor. I'm careful not to leave a mark.
ReplyDeleteRachel, you don't get away with it, not leaving a mark, not by deer's lights or the other four footed. Still, I bet they do appreciate lightness of being in any form.
ReplyDeleteI wonder. The idea that there's another ready-made soul that's made to fit yours, it kind of assumes that something's there, fixed, complete, there's no work to be done. I understand what you mean when you say
ReplyDelete'she was placed in my path as if God said "go here". I would never be able to say of her that she was the one, my true heart's companion. But she was right for my life, an arranged marriage.'
and I think that's OK.
Oddly, I think I feel better about being with who I'm with now the romantic soul-mate ideal has been allowed to slip away quietly. And having the life companion aspect sorted out can leave you more free in other ways. And I appreciate living with loving-kindness, support, those things.
No one should have to accept a binding that kills of maims them, but I think about, say, my brother. He's stuck with a very difficult marriage, not abusive but hard, often painful work, all his life, they married very young. In some ways it seems a waste, too costly, but sometimes I think it's his greatest achievement, that somewhere it's chalked up that he's done it.
Perhaps I'm going to those considerable lengths you speak of, perhaps accepting comfort and support and kindness is really a way of cushioning against the pain of reality. But I also know about the inner dream, though maybe I ignore it sometimes.
And I don't know what's to come.
I've noticed often when people are widowed, or lose a dear person to death, that they internalise them and make them part of that dream, in a way they never were in life. This is almost a comic cliche, the sainted departed spouse who was a thorn in the side when alive. It's easy to be unkind about this, but perhaps it says something about spirit companions...
Oh, and I meant to say, it's a dazzlingly lovely poem.
ReplyDeleteWow, Lucy. I love it when you decide to go into some depth. I'm with you all the way, pretty much. I would add more emphasis on the "accidental" nature of the encounters which start these relationships.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of my intense romances, two things had to be there - she welcomed me and she hit my senses just right. Falling in love was inevitable.
In my wife's case the same thing happened except much more complexity was behind the need. Falling in love was a part of it but a minor part.
I went for years consciously building my philosophy on how my marriage was closer to the human norm of arranged marriages. I really did feel okay about it until my marriage started to crash. Now I still feel okay about the start of my marriage but there was a turning point. I should have acted to separate at that point. I lacked the courage to change my life that radically. So did she.