What is love at first sight but the response of a soul crying out with regret because it realizes it has never before been recognized?
-Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces
I met someone several years ago which felt like this, who I mentioned once before. A chance meeting that stopped me in my tracks. It wasn't the claiming of my life's mate, or an overwhelming sexual attraction; it was something much less tangible. It felt like my soul woke up from a very long nap. We talked for about 50 minutes and found layers of our lives that had been woven together for years, though unbeknownst to us. The best description I can come up with is this unique and very big feeling of hope about life that I felt upon leaving that conversation. Some months later our paths crossed, are still crossing this way and that. The end of the very long story is the regret is parting, with the many partings I've experienced with people I love. Not because of any one person in my life or because of this person, but I've come to recognize it myself and know it well.
I wonder, does everyone go through a similar slow, terribly painful journey through the Desert? Mine has taken me through prolonged grief and darkness, particularly from childhood. On the other side of which is great joy, a new delight in living, loving people a little less selfishly. I falsely presume that lots of people are exempt or bypass it, or so their lives look from the outside. I think to myself, whew, are we done? Let's get on with livin'.
Fugitive Pieces arrived one day in the mail as a handmedown from Celina. I wouldn't have picked it on my own. I cherished much of it. (Amos, for whatever reason I thought you might like it as well).
18 November 2004
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5 comments:
ha, thanks for reminding me. i remember hearing great things about the book when it came out and intended to read it at them time.
it's funny how one moves between pain and hope when a relationship changes or ends. the same event can fill me with dread of the future or incredible hope, depending on my distance from it and countless other factors.
i grew up believing in the existence of soul mates. lately i'm agnostic, but still hopeful
i do believe that my outward life, who i attract, etc. is a manifestation of inward my life, my consciousness, what i believe. America is an example of that on a large scale.
does seem the 'better' i get the more the possibilities for soulful relations with people (rather than the few, predestined that i grew up romanticizing). i try to remain hopeful and open about long term covenants such as marriage.
as for chemistry, why the energy is 1,000 times stronger with one and not another, dunno, but i sure like it.
it's all about the journey so to speak. you walk through the desert alone and you walk through it with your soulmate. that's what i've found out. you work and work to bring your humanity to your conscious life and it's beautiful and terrible and time passes and everything changes.
liz, thanks for your thoughts. i look forward to your blog when your site is up.
and lo and behold, it is up!
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