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Last week, someone sweetly asked about acquiring this photograph. The description of the reasons why she wanted it in her workspace really touched me, and this brought on a whole reverie behind the intent and feelings at the very moment when an image is captured – the sometimes torrential immersion in one’s thoughts, that are incredibly mirrored by an object or a scene that happens to come across our path.
I felt a hollow there, that day, where now, today, my spirit skips and somersaults.
It is important to open up our time capsules so that we can be appreciative for our todays.
May 21, 2009
Some days my heart breaks a little, and I am awakened into a place of being old.
Being old, as pronounced by someone else’s insensitivity. The “You will not understand me.” That is what makes us old. It makes me haggard and far away from myself – from whom I used to be.
I used to be 5, with simple mornings in which Hila would playfully make my bed with me still in it, lifting the sheet up and letting it float down slowly, so that the soft air whirling would tickle my face.
I used to be 8, letting the ebbing and flowing Pacific bounce me around under the Equatorial sun.
I used to be 12, sitting in a plane awaiting a new Life in shiny Los Angeles. And then 18 in San Francisco, leaving the house so early for my morning class at the university that the sky was still an indescribable blue – a deep, secret blue that allows itself to be seen only by few.
Bursting with excitement and innocence and anticipation on a new journey.
That is youth. That was my youth. Achieving things and growing. Pondering and beholding.
I remember being 26 and the happiness that painting a simple flowerpot or crouching laboriously above a watercolor for hours and hours brought me. I contemplated, creativity unleashed, and found peace.
But each time that ability can be stripped from you. Tarnished innocence makes a person old. "You will not understand."
Even at 30, I still felt young. Little love notes packed in my lunch box, from an adoring husband who wanted heaven on earth for his pregnant wife. At night we would giggle as I lay down in bed and my belly would start moving wildly because of the tiny being inside. Jokes and laughter. We felt young. In the closeness that excitement, innocence and anticipation brought.
You will not understand. That is why I lie to you today.
Hardships endured can break my heart, break my link to myself, and I am no longer young. I find myself in anger, crushing the loveliness around me from that frustrated place at the top of my stomach.
Never would I have imagined this at 5, 8, 12, 26, 30 – How could I not understand if I still remember? – but here I am today.
And my heart breaks, and youth feels gone.
[This excerpt is from a journal entry written on May 21, 2009.]
- - - - -
So to answer the question, what becomes of the broken hearted?
For me, the heart heals and gathers muscle. Not to be rougher, hopefully, but stronger. We never really, fully go back to that broken place. The only reason I can rewrite about this today is because I am enfolded in the safety of distance and healing. Like waking up from a bad, bad dream and realizing, "Hey, Life is pretty good!" Remembering the sorrows is very different from drowning in them, and thank goodness for our buoyancy!
What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted (1965) - performed by Jimmy Ruffin, written by Paul Riser, James Dean, and William Weatherspoon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQU4sIn96M4
I felt a hollow there, that day, where now, today, my spirit skips and somersaults.
It is important to open up our time capsules so that we can be appreciative for our todays.
May 21, 2009
Some days my heart breaks a little, and I am awakened into a place of being old.
Being old, as pronounced by someone else’s insensitivity. The “You will not understand me.” That is what makes us old. It makes me haggard and far away from myself – from whom I used to be.
I used to be 5, with simple mornings in which Hila would playfully make my bed with me still in it, lifting the sheet up and letting it float down slowly, so that the soft air whirling would tickle my face.
I used to be 8, letting the ebbing and flowing Pacific bounce me around under the Equatorial sun.
I used to be 12, sitting in a plane awaiting a new Life in shiny Los Angeles. And then 18 in San Francisco, leaving the house so early for my morning class at the university that the sky was still an indescribable blue – a deep, secret blue that allows itself to be seen only by few.
Bursting with excitement and innocence and anticipation on a new journey.
That is youth. That was my youth. Achieving things and growing. Pondering and beholding.
I remember being 26 and the happiness that painting a simple flowerpot or crouching laboriously above a watercolor for hours and hours brought me. I contemplated, creativity unleashed, and found peace.
But each time that ability can be stripped from you. Tarnished innocence makes a person old. "You will not understand."
Even at 30, I still felt young. Little love notes packed in my lunch box, from an adoring husband who wanted heaven on earth for his pregnant wife. At night we would giggle as I lay down in bed and my belly would start moving wildly because of the tiny being inside. Jokes and laughter. We felt young. In the closeness that excitement, innocence and anticipation brought.
You will not understand. That is why I lie to you today.
Hardships endured can break my heart, break my link to myself, and I am no longer young. I find myself in anger, crushing the loveliness around me from that frustrated place at the top of my stomach.
Never would I have imagined this at 5, 8, 12, 26, 30 – How could I not understand if I still remember? – but here I am today.
And my heart breaks, and youth feels gone.
[This excerpt is from a journal entry written on May 21, 2009.]
- - - - -
So to answer the question, what becomes of the broken hearted?
For me, the heart heals and gathers muscle. Not to be rougher, hopefully, but stronger. We never really, fully go back to that broken place. The only reason I can rewrite about this today is because I am enfolded in the safety of distance and healing. Like waking up from a bad, bad dream and realizing, "Hey, Life is pretty good!" Remembering the sorrows is very different from drowning in them, and thank goodness for our buoyancy!
What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted (1965) - performed by Jimmy Ruffin, written by Paul Riser, James Dean, and William Weatherspoon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQU4sIn96M4