So here I am, negotiating my relationship to the world in the past and the present. Which parts of the past do I listen to, and which ones do I not listen to? How do I get my gut and the maps to align?
And what do I do when I get to the edge and discover that there is no more map? Or that I have made (yet another) wrong turn?
Oh Launa, thank you. Thank you.
Perfection Wasted, by John Updike
And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market –
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories
packed in the rapid-access file.
The whole act.Who will do it again? That’s it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren’t the same.
I have long loved this poem by John Updike. Like all poetry that really moves me, it hits different chords on different days. Often I’ve read it and thought about “your own brand of magic,” wondering and doubting that I have any of that, and thinking through those whose magic dazzles me regularly or sporadically.
Today I’m thinking about those in the front row. The people who are dearest, those whose tears I know and whose warm breath moves, sometimes, in rhythm with my heart. Those in the front row are a mixed group, and very small in number. I love the image of adjusting our “slant” to a few. Yes, in a negative interpretation this is molding ourselves to others’ expectations in a way that compromises our truest selves. But I think there is another way to think about it: that is to consider that those we love dearly become a part of us, their input and reflections and advice and feedback gradually shape us over time, and as we incorporate tiny shards of them we also become more fully ourselves.
To take Updike’s metaphor further (though I don’t actually resonate with the notion of people watching me on a stage – that is certainly not how I want my life to be) it is those in the front row who can see beneath the stage makeup. Those in the front row can see when the actors hesistate over a forgotten line, or when they take a wrong step and are cued back to the right spot by a look in the other actor’s eyes. As familiar as those in the front row are, so am I familiar to them. And as uncomfortable as that familiarity may sometimes be, it is, in the end, the stuff of real life and the way to being truly seen.
Who is in your front row? Have you told them how grateful you are for them recently?
The late afternoon sky yesterday was take-your-breath-away beautiful. The sky was clear and hazy at the same time, dotted with flat-bottomed, fluffy-topped clouds, white, shot through with gray and pink. The horizon was an undulating line separating the dark land, textured with the various colors of autumn foliage, from the transcendantly clear sky marked here and there with smudges dark gray. Pale pink light glowed from beyond the horizon. The air seemed animated with the presence of something eternal and I felt very small and very large at once.
I thought of Tintern Abbey suddenly. As Wordsworth’s familiar words spoke in my head I felt both cliched and brand new.
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused…
Laughter is an effervescent form of holiness – Annie Lamott
(thanks to Brene at Ordinary Courage)
We are here to learn to endure the beams of love. – William Blake
Love is an act of courage, not of fear. – Paolo Freire
(thanks to Ronna at Renegade Conversations)
I was made … not to prove myself worthy but to refine the worth I’m formed from, acknowledge it, own it, spend it on others. – Mary Karr, Lit
Watching the sky crack open into a million muted colors of gray, lavendar, peach, pale blue this morning over the valley in Vermont.
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common—this is my symphony. – Henry William Channing
With thanks to litwit.