Waxing poetically

I’m sorry I’ve written sporadically over the past couple days. On the last end, things have improved, dare I say. I think A realized the folly of listening to his parents or that our finances were any of their business.

I’m not in a great mood. I feel sad. I feel taken for granted in the most general sense.

There’s so much I want to say, but I don’t even know how to say it right now.

I will acknowledge that B’s birthday is tomorrow. He’ll be 30. First of all, let’s remind ourselves that I generally have an absurd and painful memory for dates. So is it any surprise I remember his birthday?

Second, let’s also remember that tomorrow was April Fools Day: who are the gods playing a joke on? To strike someone with mental illness is too cruel to be a joke.

Spring is mania-season for him, too, so when I got a call from a restricted number that didn’t leave a message the other day, I started to feel on edge. I can’t say I’ve shaken that feeling. There is something about this time of year for me that’s upsetting.

Let’s think…

…back in 8^th grade, my friend’s father died on Easter. Said friend was over at my house when that happened. Nice.

…waaaay back, when I maybe-kinda-believed-a-little-that-God-existed, I always found Easter morbid and upsetting. C’mon, you’re GOD! Don’t let them kill your son.

I also felt guilty, too. Someone died for my sins? Geesh, I’m only 6 or 7 or 8. I knew what “rape” was, I knew who “Ted Bundy” was; how on earth could MY sins of --I’m not even sure what--be so offensive that someone would need to die to cleanse the world of said sins?

When I was in college, I wrote this:

The sun has long been in the sky

            yet I am Weary…

Of life, in general.  How can I get up,

            get out, and participate in the

everyday charades that I’d

much rather bury myself from?

Alone.

I am alone.  My

lack of joy is different

from your unhappiness.

You cannot get over

the morbidity of life and

the mortality which it entails.

I cannot comprehend the

trivialities…

or, perhaps it is the other way around…

A snow shower of leaves and dogwood petals

pollute the wind to only litter the lush

grass.  The green newness

            only seen in April,

ferocious April,

both awe-inspiring and terrifying to me:

I love spring. I hate spring.

Rebirth implies a necessity to replace life,

            implies a certain yet uncertain

death.

I don’t consider myself a good poet (although that was part of the collection that won a national award--go figure). But I really, really love those last lines. Because while spring does bring new life, there is an obvious question people always overlook with spring. Why new life?

Because things, people, loved ones, everything—either changes or dies.

I mean, folks, c’mon. It’s not as morbid as it sounds. It’s the cycle of life.

Ah, writing all of this out, this end of March nonsense, is helping me understand why, when I felt the urge to read T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” again this morning and why these lines are staying with me…

If there were water   

And no rock   

If there were rock   

And also water   

And water 

A spring 

A pool among the rock    

If there were the sound of water only    

Not the cicada    

And dry grass singing    

But sound of water over a rock 

Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees   

Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop    

But there is no water   

Who is the third who walks always beside you? 

When I count, there are only you and I together 

But when I look ahead up the white road 

There is always another one walking beside you 

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded 

I do not know whether a man or a woman 

—But who is that on the other side of you?