sebastian6

I listened to an elderly lady read a script today. As she read, sitting next to me concentrating on her paper, I pictured her as a little girl trying to read a report for school. It's easy to forget that each of these white haired folks (let alone our thirty-year-old selves) were once kids just trying their best. She read wonderfully and I secretly gave her a gold star.

Yesterday I listened to the poet Donald Hall read some poems and talk about the death of his wife. He said that the flowers she had planted bloomed a few weeks after her death. And it was writing about those wildflowers that got him through his grief. I believe we all have the same pains, the same griefs, the same sadness in our lives. It's just a question of degree and frequency. Yet we can feel so far away from each other. We're never so in love as when we're alone.

It's like the trick where you try to grab something but it's an illusion of light. We become complacent and forget how much we need each other. We forget just how delicate everything is. And how at any moment it can change forever.

Often elderly folks are much more like children. And I mean that in a good way- our lives complete a full circle. We start without the knowledge and sophistication to make it in this world. Soon we gain a little of it and try to make a go of it. We get cocky. Then, as we drift towards the end of life, we let go of that. I think the years serve to slowly put into stark relief what is important and what is trivia in our lives.

Why am I not writing poetry and prose everyday? There is soooo much there.