I AM GOING ON VACATION

The thing about vacations is that as much as NOT being on one means work, going on one requires a lot of planning and strategizing. I think its time for me to go on vacation. Extenuating circumstances require it. It is going to be an extended one. It may not be exotic but it will have to do. I am not taking anybody with me. I'm not taking my cellphone. I am not taking my laptop. It will just be ME. I have several places in mind but I have it narrowed down to two. It will be great. I am disposing of anyone and anything that causes me undeserved stress or pain. I am looking forward to it.

It Is Never Really Enough

You may give them that last oreo cookie that you saved to make you a shake just because they want it but in the end, they will eat only the filling and throw away the cookie.

You may put off reading that important book that you think you need to read to fill your mushy brain with some semblance of intelligence so you can read Green Eggs and Ham for the 56th time but ultimately, they will forget that you ever read them books.

You may decide to give up your career so you can have the privilege of raising your children on your own with dreams of bequeathing to them all your thoughts, your passion, your talents but ultimately, they will think you hover over them too much.

You may defend them from all things fearsome and use your body as a shield from the arrows of disappointment or judgments but ultimately, they will think the arrows came from you.

You may love whom they love, care for them, be generous with them but ultimately, they will find something else you lack.

You may give them everything they want and generously endow them with tangible and intangible gifts but ultimately, those things won't really matter.

You may have come from royalty, or artists, scientists, mathematicians or saints but ultimately, they won't care about your past.

You may be intelligent, experienced, wise or talented but ultimately, they will strip you of all those qualities by refusing to see them...or take advantage of them.

It is never really quite enough.

Waiting For Fire

I think mental illness was pervasive in my genealogy. I really don't know what 'normal' is. How does one realize what is normal? All I know after half a century of life is that I definitely came from brilliant people mired in fits of eccentricity, melancholia or perverse models of dangerous thought and behaviour.

My world has always been my mind because all too many times, the world around me was too dangerous and frightening. And yet, as I sit here in the dark, I cannot conclude if it was my mind that made my reality frightening or if the variables outside myself contributed to the darkness in my mind. What I conclude is more accurate is that there really is something just outside the periphery of my mind that voraciously putrefies any sense of well-being faster than my intellect can produce.

The feeling of desperation and self-loathing is like a thief that steals the light from inside me. I know when its there and no matter how clearly my mind tells me how beautiful and bright the world is outside or how perfectly charming my life is, it somehow can obliterate all that reason.

And yet, there is someone else who lives inside me. She can be charming and vivacious. And she seems to know what to do. I call upon her to accompany me through the events of my life. But she comes only when she wants to. The brilliance with which she comports herself with people she chooses to love consists of extreme generosity, affection and selflessness. She is someone inside me who seems to be real that despair imprisons all too many times. She loves but fiercely. She feels everything deeply. She passionately wants to experiment with life and yearns to blur the banal boundaries that slays her need to express herself--to create, to discover, to devise. She is easily hurt and when that happens, she can be frighteningly imperial. That is the someone that I slay in order to be 'normal'. She visits me less and less now. And then the darkness sets in.

Those were wonderful days when she would arise. Always she comes with fire and sharpness. We soar together. That's when I feel like I can touch the infinite and my mind races because the window of opportunity is open only for a limited time. I have to move quickly. I feel exuberant and timeless. And then... as fast as she comes, she can also wreak havoc. And I have to pay dearly for her companionship...sometimes the price is much too costly.

She visits me less and less now. Did I already say that? In her stead, anguish. And the loathing begins. And I wait for fire. I wait for her to save me. Time is running out. The wait is paralyzing. Let her come soon.

*******

"I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great"
by Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.