Took a break just now, tossed a broken pair of scissors in the trash, plus to half-filled water bottles from the fridge that I finished off, easing the parchedness of my throat. If we only threw out stuff around here that doesn't work, the house would be a LOT neater. Went to the hut for a smoke, but for the first time, and you will appreciate this: Lit the small round candle, about 1/2" high that sits on the candle holder that is attached to the piece of iron work that also holds a velvet glass circular piece. The flame shown so brightly on my side (west side) of the hut, so I just had to see what it looked like looking in from the East. The flame was barely visible, and thus, my anonymity was maintained. Started watching the flame, so strong, so upright, and then, it hit something, candle wax, most likely, and started to sputter, and almost went out. But, it recovered and grew up straight and tall again, except, all of a sudden, it started to bend in the breeze, a north western breeze, and this is so odd, because the hut is well sheltered from the West, and not badly sheltered from the North. Eventually the candle flame started to burn upright again. There may be an analogy for our lives in this, and I am certain that you have watched candle flames, mesmerized, for almost all of your waking life.
And then I thought some more about our conversations this evening, and had this vision of you crying yourself to sleep. Tears of joy, hopefully, but not all joy.
How could you have been so stupid? How could you have been so ignorant? Well, we are all stupid, and utterly so at various points in our lives, and too, we are all ignorant, and utterly so at various points in our lives.
But stupidity can be overcome and anyway, it is rarely fatal. Same goes for ignorance. HOWEVER, the deadly cocktail mixed combination of stupidity AND ignarance, well, that can kill you, or permanently main your soul.
And when I say "you," I really mean "us," and perhaps this is a more accurate reflection of the generaliztion: HOWEVER, the deadly cocktail mixed combination of stupidity AND ignarance, well, that can kill one so enthralled, or permanently main one's soul, and I remembered again, Tinkerbelle, whom I so desperately wanted to love me, (and for all the wrong reasons - just because she was from the same town as my Uncle Jim, who was mortally wounded and died near Trey Ninh, Vietnam, 22 Sept, 1968, the same town as his wife, my beloved Aunt Louise, having her love me would never bring Jim back from the grave.
And thus, I loved her for all the wrong reasons. Although, she was a light, sailing vessel, and a good-time gal (not in any sexual way, no, those urges in her would not be awakened until long after she had left me with her cats, who hated me, and then feared me the night I couldn't take them anymore, and took them from the apartment to return to her, the feckless Tinkerbelle.
No, me, she would never love; nor any of the other men she always dated whenever she and I were together, and there were always at least two others, guess she needed to devour one for every meal of the day.
We were play things to her, and although I was smarter (by far, except for my stupidity) and more talented by far (in ways too that she never glimmered) than all the others, we were simply not meant to be.
So how did it come about that my son is almost the spitting image of her? His milky white smooth skin, that turned up nose, that auburn colored hair, those engaging blue eyes, that joy of laughter and silliness, that not so endearing trait of non-loyalty, of enjoying folks for the moment, but pretty much discarding them as one would a paper napkin from a fast food joint, after having blown one's nose in it.
They are two of a kind, and I am so much better off without either one of them in my life.
Thank you Lord. AMEN.
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