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Sunday, August 19, 2012

Reflections...

Awakened to the clamoring of my heart, I slowly shake the silence from the corners of this solemn, darkened bedroom. Restlessness now equalized between both my soul and the surrounding stifling air, I feel compelled to seek out redemptive understanding...a way for my heart to breathe. As I depart on my lonely midnight walk into the streets of the humid Mississippi summer, the ever present winds and waves echo nearby as gentle but permanent reminders of the inherent volatility of even the most simplistic moments here in this place...

Something has changed. Her words no longer authored with the same depth, nor fervor. The last messages I received, merely shallow dialogue in what was the most compelling, heart wrenching and significant conversation I had ever experienced. If she was now content to let this go...to reconcile her current life, alter her intentions here while abdicating this love, surely she would grant me that privilege, that essential gift. Alas, my heart aches.

Saddened. For the first time in this, I feel utterly mortal. My cape now tattered, my bleeding heart readily exposed to the callous and ungrateful night lying here before me. I reflect on this conversation to determine the source of its unplanned demise. I can only deduce that perhaps my reflection was to blame...

Reflections are intriguingly insightful reminders of where you stand even when your conceptions of reality are both lofty and idealistic. Love makes you believe that emotions transcend reality, that its essential presence washes away all detractors, all imperfections with an uncommon ease. Perhaps, I am a little too unattractive now in my current state of physical maturation. Twenty years can do that to a previously strapping young athlete now nearly four decades in age. I can only surmise with obvious pain that was one of the recent pivot points which has carved out the path of dissolution here.

Ironically enough, my barren feet stand in rigid silence upon the beach that only seven years to the day, Hurricane Katrina battered with 30 foot waves. I feel marginalized and reminded that what is now remains at peace is only a brief respite from what ruins may become....the same water that nourishes us is the very same that destroys us. Love is my nourishment..... Perhaps it was my heart and not my heel that was left untempered and unprotected at the River Stix. For now, I stand vulnerable and alone, just as the homes did proudly during the intense storms, but without the warning allotted to their structures and certainly without the hopes for a promising return to glory after their subsidence.

As I gaze out upon the moonlit water, I feel comforted by an unnaturally warm embrace.
Perhaps this is not about me at all, but just the course of love itself. Perhaps I am just too hard on myself....perhaps in fact, the reflections are just nature carving out its own controlled burn upon my soul....to purify my life, to wash away the essence of my own foundation in order to rebuild and reclassify my petty existence. It would be cruel to believe that all of this conversation was simply a bold wakeup call, but I know better than to question fate and its intentions.....certainly not while standing literally on the shores of the Gulf Coast. The new epicenter of this storm is within my soul. How will I prepare for its arrival? What lessons remain to be taught here?

Who will believe in this long enough to remain standing after the wrath of its pruning has been completed? I turn to leave and notice the sand is blackened without the sun, everything is dark without reflections of light.....ergo, I need to find my own source of light......to ever have a chance of restoring my reflections.......restoring my life.


Friday, August 17, 2012

At the gate....

I stand motionless...trapped in time between where I am, and where I want to be. As my tired hands clench the black iron spindles of the gate before me, the cold hollow bars mirror the restless and deceptively barren nature of my heart. Compelled without consideration for the immediate consequences of being here, my heart remains strong but unbalanced in its quest for fulfillment. Peering past the gate, scenes of dismay, sadness, and frustration crowd the stage and leave me questioning the essential rationale for my own arrival at this place. I remain. I recount the short lived joys just days before of seeing her stand before me, smiling and believing completely in this, in love itself, sanctioned or not by others who would certainly dismiss these emotions as folly and trivial reprieves from the reality of our present walk. As the dark clouds pass ominously overhead, they echo the ever changing present emotions of my soul...The stability of this moment continues to unnervingly vacillate between contentment, even joy, and then equally sorrow and regret.

As she emerges from the darkness and approaches the gate, my heart races with the immediacy of her presence, but protective of her intentions and the strings to my soul that lie exposed on the ground before us both. I am completely cognizant that she can see my vulnerability, but I continue to stand firm and confident in my stance, unwavering.....rooted deeply in my conviction, my essence and faith in this love. She mutters a few words about her day, and I can tell this journey has already sapped more out of her walk than expected. She turns to me with apparent sadness and simply says, "I am unsettled.....majorly unsettled......" My mind races to recount every recent statement, sentiment, even unstated thought that has flowed between our collective souls, and like a super computer scanning every available global database at its disposal, I return with no records, no files, no memories to justify nor validate her commentary.

Chalking it up to innocent but overwhelming stress of her path, I don't allow my mind to accept culpability for its presence, but secretly I wonder if perhaps the reality of her expectations in who I am now standing before her, have begun to alter her desire to be completely present. Perhaps, I am not worthy of her, of this, perhaps I was truly better off as a memory. It pains every last rivet of my mortal shell, but I knew the potential in what showing up here could produce long before I arrived. I turn my head briefly to avoid her viewing my fragility and as the tears cascade down my face, I know my attempts to hide the essential gravity of the moment are completely unavailing.

Knowing our own collective sensitivity and depth of exposure in this, she cannot help but start to cry outwardly, mimicking in unison, the feelings of true love gone lost for so long. I know inwardly it is easier to discount love and its promises, than stand boldly as it attempts to unravel, uproot and remold every last corner of your life for its own altruistic purpose. I touch her hand now balancing her weakened frame against the iron gate carved out between us. "Go, enjoy your evening. Get some rest, try to relax....." , I proclaim quite unemotionally. Selfishly...I want her to stay, knowing I would
stand here at her side forever, but also painfully aware this sanctity is fleeting and her journey is indeed overwhelming. As my fingers lift from their embrace of her delicately warm hands, I know that being here is the ultimate sacrifice.....the ultimate display of faith for us both. For we both are supremely certain it would easier to turn away from this, than ever having the perserverance of seeing it through. Uncertain of the future, I start wondering, pondering in silence what my purpose here truly is. As she turns away from then gate, I record every second of her departure as the waves of my soul churn....wanting so much for her to stay here with me every moment and everyday......but knowing that is not the reality of this conversation, at least today.

I promise to keep returning here...to this gate. For to feel her, even in these minute moments of fleeting joy, surpasses all alternatives. She is worth all of my sacrifice, as she is and has always been my
everything. There is actually no sacrifice in true love, only the innate, unselfish desire to be complete in this painful, burdening and relentless life....

"You will not be unsettled forever......I love you...." , I whisper to the wind before departing...