LIFE SUSPENDED/LOVING
Life is a very, very strange series of events....like everyone else in the American 'culture' I live in, I'm constantly weighing my expectations about what My Life should be like regarding being loved and loving people... compared to what is really going on in the so-called "real world". As I'm older and older, I think about how I thought life was going to go on, when I would be 'grown up' - that nothing but better and better Relationships, on all levels of life, would mainfest in Life for me... Not one thing or event or person turned out to be what or who I imagined they would be...there were shards and shreds of who and what they had all been... in the main, the world is very different than it was when I was a child...for I had been a lucky and very much loved child....
Now that I am in my later sixties, I can look back on patterns I lived, and see how much I wanted Love: to feel being loved and to love right back: not knowledge. tho I enjoy learning. quite a bit... not things. not 'success'. not a house or fine furniture. not fame. not fortune. All I ever wanted was to love and to be loved...if I add up all the years when loving and being loved was the fullness of each year, one at a time, I would have to say that every year was full of Love, in the main. there were months when I would be unhappy, because I didn't have a special friend, or a 'mate' during those months. there was always sorrow, I had as an adult, for the loss of people I had loved...my Gramma Anne...my Grandpa Amann...my Uncle Henry...many elders, over time...eventually, my dear 'Pops', my best friend for thirty five years...my parents...and then...the losses of loves...my 'First Love'...Denny Alan McCue...my first husband, Robert. the father of my children. the farm.....my second husband, Alex...his music. his joy.....my third husband, Michael. his intelligence. generosity.....and now my fourth husband, Stan...caretaking. Europe.....only Alex actually died....
Then too, I lost, as well, the two men I had lived with for a long time...Rick, who was dear to me after Alex died...Erich, who taught me all about Art and danced with me for nine years, who is dead now....then all the friends who died...especially Lee, who had a spirit like a flame in my life for over twenty years....many older friends...all gone....these were all losses of love...holes in the fabric of my spirit, which had always wanted only the Love, always the Love....
especially over the number of husbands, I'm sure most would say...well, you aren't that loyal, are you?...well...I was very true - for long, long times and in my own ways - which were honest...I was as loyal as I had the heart to be....I did leave all three of my husbands. The reasons are mine as is the responsibility for them all. My Silence about who they were in all this, is my way of respecting these times.they are private. and real. and serious. I feel I need to stand honestly on my own two feet about these loses. they are not matters of pride. but they are matters of humanity. and I am only a member of humanity when it comes to these loses. I stand responsive to them. true to them. tho that is not consolation for those I hurt in the leaving.
There was all the time with the Children...all three my Pack: Krai Anne. Sabra Beth. Chris...and all the Step Children...the Grandchildren...even the Great-Grandchildren I do not see... they are always wrapped around my bones...I breathe in and out in Love for them...
all the hundreds of Students over almost twenty years...always the future generations in my present....giving them love as much as I could do. many times returned. sometimes less returned...sometimes not returned at all....it didn't matter....the Human Race depends on those of us who nurture the Children. I have tried with all my heart to be there with them on their difficult roads...growing and learning and feeling and thinking and experiencing...never a perfect journey with any of them...but always a full and satisfying one...the heart of the adventures of human loving....
The 'Patients"...over twenty five years of 'care'...nursing care...trying so hard, really hard, to teach every one who came on to my path...how to care for themselves and others...how to alleviate all the disease...the dis-ease...all the pain...the sorrow of the Physical-gone-wrong...the emotional and the psychological and the spiritual: all awry...all to be repaired to 'go on'...I did a good job. I really did...then, I was always waiting for the time I would hear each of them say that they were OK now. that they didn't need me any more...that life was 'better' now...that was my work then...still often is...
All these Loves and Works and People are past ways of Life...suspended in time's storehouse of memories. not the present. not the so-named 'future'....the suspension of all the Past gone...truly gone.....
So, now, I want to speak to the waiting that happens in life...the suspension of time, as we all wait... for the end of pain. for the beginning of a life. for death. for birth. for 'growing up'. for war to be over. for peace. for gain...of whatever it is we want to gain. for friendships. for grand occasions. for leavings. for graduations. for work. for time off from work. for food. for shelter. for the quenching of thirsts. for the quenching of desires. for fulfilment. for the end of sorrow. for the wonder of joy. for travel. for security. for staying... for Love. especially, for Love....these waitings, and so many more, all depend on having enough space to move on...or into...or beyond....and for time. to hold us...without 'early' death...without an end....
and it is Time that moves on and moves on and leaves us far behind without mercy or pity or any feeling at all....
I am waited again these last couple of years...for the end of two divorces. mine and Stan's. Den's and his wife's. Leavings and Losses. again. here's what I have promised myself. that this sort of loss will never happen again in my life. or in his. I will move heaven and earth and hell itself to see to it that only Death can part us. I will challenge even Death over this one...yet...I fear what else Life will hand me, over loss in this Quest I have to Love and to be Loved...I have never had any idea about the future that ever came true as I thought it would...so...how can I expect something different in whatever future I have? and, who knows how much of that 'future' I even have? I am so rarely a 'well' person, as I age....
Suspended in Time...I suspect every one else is, like me, in less control than they think they are, about their time on earth...what they are going to be able to do and not do. how people and events are going to change or not... in this strange and improbable journey we all call 'Life"....
Wisdom is supposed to come with age. I don't see it. I know less and less and less about the 'Human Condition' than I thought I knew when I was younger. I even judged others a bit more when I was younger...I feel suspended in time for sure...I have very little time on this planet...nobody has much time at all...and we all keep waiting for it all to be 'better' -better than...what? What did Life ever promise any single one of us...I wind up simply being so grateful that I have had so much Music and Song and Good Times, and Friends, and Family, and this writing I do and all the Water and times in and on Water...for so, so much...for always having 'Enough' - of Every Single Human Thing!
Here's what I think.or maybe, more truly, what I feel...we are all, deep to our cores...simply suspended in this short time and space - really - to Love and to Be Loved...just as I suspected as a very young person...to allow a great compassion...with passion - a great passion...with compassion. I believe deeply, that we have no other possibilities in this Life then to take our Waiting for the Other...and make it real in Life... through Love. The action of Love. the caring. the serving. of ourselves. of the countless others who will cross our life paths....
I don't think these idea are too grand at all. I believe that Love is really absolutely Everything and All that we have...
I am waiting, always, to give and take in all the Love there is and let it suspend in me as if I was a cradle for Love...where Love can regather and then go out and move in what ever it is that is the 'real world'....that I can be a Water Way that Love can travel upon...to its home in the hearts of others....
I believe this is a Life worth living.
I will do this Life of Loving.
No other plan. no other view:
My Occupation:
Love
That's what I do....
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I like how you don't get "all mushy" about love and life, two pretty important things. I believe this is the piece about which I wrote to you, Kathy.
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