Three poems of Paul Murray, that fit my current state of mind.

A Note on Human Passion

Sacred or profane
--it does not matter--
one must not anaesthetize
or dull the pain
but instead sustain
the splintered heart's
helpless yet terrifying
and sharp desire
never to be healed
of the wound of living.

--Paul Murray in The Absent Fountain

Seasons

In quick or in slow succession, frost
into fire, fire into frost,
the seasons of the year return
and leave us numb with cold
or warm us, like the seasons of the heart.

But that last season you endured
--your heart’s dark winter—
was so bleak and cold that still
to this day, to this hour,
the frost remains in your blood.

But now is the moment of change,
now the apocalypse.
Today, swept by the winds of another
season, the blossoms
of the fruit trees are ablaze with colour.

Surely it is the end of spring,
the promised summer?
So say “yes” and “yes” again
to this moment
while it turns, for soon it will be gone.

And soon the trees of spring
will become the trees of memory,
and will be shaken by the powerful winds
of memory, cowering
like blown candles and blazing askew.

----Paul Murray in The Absent Fountain

In the Making

The gift, when it comes,
comes always from where
you least expect: either

from that hurt void you feel
after actual loss
or from mere absence

of a longed-for music,
from a line or a theme
you cannot seem to recall

or a phrase of a poem
you cannot complete.
But then with an instinct

born from that lack
or that need--suddenly,
out of the side

of the poem, another music
begins, another song.
And there it is on its feet,

bone of your bone and yet
free, flesh of your flesh
but not yours, a theme

like a new Eve emerging.

--Paul Murray in These Black Stars

Diane

The visitation for my neighbor Diane was this afternoon. I heard from her children that she had one last request of me. Her exact words were, "tell Dan to trim that damn Rose of Sharon bush!" She threatened to come and knock pictures off of my wall until I took care of it.

That's just like Diane...she was perpetually hounding me about my gardening skills, and my rose of Sharon bush has grown into an unwieldy behemoth that has blocked her lilac bush from getting enough sun.

I'm going to the funeral on Saturday, and then coming home and doing some serious pruning.

My Neighbor

I awoke this morning, looked out the window and saw on my neighbor's porch signs that she had passed on. All of the equipment that was used to make her last days comfortable was sitting on the porch, waiting to be picked up. Her family is busying themselves, packing things away, filling the painful minutes with activity. It's sad, but Diane is indeed in a better place. Having so much time at home, knowing she would be passing soon was a gift, to her, to her family, and to all of us who knew her.

Pray for her family, will you?

She has entered into joy, unimaginable. Praise be to God!

My neighbor, Diane

I believe that I spoke with my neighbor, Diane, for the last time today. She's dying of cancer, and the doctors gave her 6-12 days to live. Today is the 12th day, and tomorrow, I'm off to Minnesota with my brass quintet. We won't be back until Good Friday. It's rare to actually know that a given moment, and a conversation, is the very last one you'll have. At least on this earth.

Please pray for her and her family this week.

I think that Holy Week is a good week to finish your journey in this world.

When Will These Sorts of Posts Be Done?

As I reflect on the beginning of a new year, and think about the events of the past year, one thought in particular comes to mind. 2008 was chiefly by the loss of Meg in my life. As a rational man, trying to look at my own life as dispassionately as possible, I can't quite understand why this has impacted me so profoundly, or how it still reverberates through my life. It is strange to me, and abnormal to be so shackled by a past relationship. I have often cried out to God to release me from the fetters of my love for Meg yet I still feel her void in my life each day.

I still love her, as much as ever. The start of each day is marked by thoughts of her, and the day ends in the same manner, yet I wish it were not so. I pray for her when I think of her, thus these thoughts are not in vain, and good comes out of the constant reminder that she isn't in my life.

Dating Meg now feels to me like a shadow of something that happened to someone else, a dream of a relationship with a woman who has become more apparition than the flesh and blood woman I once held in my arms. The lack of her is no chimera however--it is the most palpable aspect of my life. I feel that I am missing an essential part of me. In the two years since we dated, it has become clear to me that her heart was inexorably woven into my own, bound to my own as if with sinews, so much so that the cleaving of her heart from mine causes me to feel as if I suffer from the phantom loss of a limb. She was entwined with my life, and I walk with a limp now, it seems, and I know that my memory of her will always be more of the ache of her loss than it will be the joy of having been with her. I don't understand why this is so. It doesn't feel normal, but so it goes with love and life and one's heart. We can never predict the matters of the heart, and I find myself at the mercy of my heart's feelings, even though my mind and brain wish to be free of her.

I go through life with smiles, and laughter, but the phantom loss of her is ever present in my mind. An evening spent with friends, I wish she were by my side. In all of my chocolate making, I know how much she would have enjoyed experiencing every part of the process. In concerts where I am proud of my playing, I wish she were there, as she once was. When I go home to visit my family, I long for her to be there, by my side. And even in the quiet moments of life, in the most mundane of tasks, I wish that she could be there with me, even in the most banal of errands. It would be a sign that she was a part of my life, completely and fully. I wish she was my wife. One would think that two years is long enough, but clearly not for me. I hope and pray that this year will mark freedom from the shackles that still seem to bind me, but they are shackles that are kept there because of love, unrequited though it may be. I have prayed that God would allow me to move on from Meg, in His time, and since my heart still pines for her, it seems that it is apportioned for me to still love her. And so I pray for her, and for her happiness, and for her soul.

I do not want to ever stop loving her, but I would like it if there was room for another woman to enter this heart of mine. Perhaps 2009 will be the year. God's will be done.

Now This is Just Sad

Paul Newman has passed away.

Seasons

Fall is soon upon us. Today in my neighbor's maple tree I saw the first sign of the blazing red color this tree turns each fall. It's still warm and feels like summer, but the days of falling leaves, chilly evenings and apple cider and donuts will soon be here. I look forward to fall, but I find these days of transition difficult.

I have been in a low grade funk ever since I got home from Cabrillo and I was trying to figure what's been going on and why I've been feeling this way. Just as the seasons change, I think our lives have seasons of their own. I think it's as if our psyche remembers both the good and bad things that happen to us.

I've often heard that for those who've lost a close family member, that season of the year is usually a difficult one. I have been restless these past two weeks, unable to sleep, and I've had a surprisingly insatiable desire for Wendy's French fries, my drug of choice when the funk hits. (Is that so bad?)

It dawned on me that it was two years ago that Meg and I ended things, and a year ago that I professed my love for her and she rejected me.

It's no wonder I've been in a funk--life has circled around to this painful time of the year again.

I can honestly say that the pain has essentially past. I still have twinges here and there, echoes of a year ago, but I'm no longer bleeding.

This in between time is challenging. It will be better when I'm back to work, back teaching, and back into the swing of my daily life.

Next year I just need to be prepared for this season of my life.

I am reminded of a poem I already posted about a year ago. It's become one of my favorites, and is worth posting again.

Seasons

In quick or in slow succession, frost
into fire, fire into frost,
the seasons of the year return
and leave us numb with cold
or warm us, like the seasons of the heart.

But that last season you endured
--your heart’s dark winter—
was so bleak and cold that still
to this day, to this hour,
the frost remains in your blood.

But now is the moment of change,
now the apocalypse.
Today, swept by the winds of another
season, the blossoms
of the fruit trees are ablaze with colour.

Surely it is the end of spring,
the promised summer?
So say “yes” and “yes” again
to this moment
while it turns, for soon it will be gone.

And soon the trees of spring
will become the trees of memory,
and will be shaken by the powerful winds
of memory, cowering
like blown candles and blazing askew.

----Paul Murray in The Absent Fountain

fine

Well, I saw Meg for the final time today. That door is finally closed and it wasn't easy.

I saw her a few weeks ago, and on that day we made plans to get together again. I was optimistic that I might be able to see her from time to time and the justification for her coming over was to try some chocolates. It didn't take too long after that visit two weeks ago for me to figure out that I could never see her again. It's too painful.

I think having a feeling of closure is important though, so I decided to keep our plans as they were. Obviously the chocolates wouldn't be here, but I had cakes for her to try and I knew she'd enjoy that.

I told her how nice it was to see her again, which is true. Chatting with her makes it painfully clear how nice it is to see her. I told her though that I didn't think I could see her again--that it made it difficult and was confusing. She said she understood, and indeed she had expected me to cancel for today.

I asked her a question that had been rolling through my mind. When she told me last week she was dating another guy, she said to me, "But he's not you, Dan."

I asked her why she would ever say that, and what she meant by it.

She of course meant it as a compliment, and as we talked, she told me that even though our relationship hadn't worked out, it proved to her that it was possible that there could be someone with whom everything fit, "like lock and key," that it was possible to find someone who cared about the same things you did, who you could talk everything through, someone who cherished you and who you cherished in return. Essentially our relationship proved to her that it was possible to find a great man. She told me that she doesn't think there are many women out there who deserve to be with me.

That's hard to hear. And so is "lock and key."

I'm beyond angst ridden thoughts about why it didn't work out. I can't consume any more thinking about it. It's natural for me to want to ask her what gives--if I proved to her that it's possible to find someone who fits like a lock and key, then why look any further?

I'm done with those thoughts or questions though. It's pointless and futile.

I told her that I cared about her, that I will always care about her, and that indeed, her relationship was a gift to me--that it helped heal wounds that I had that she didn't even know about. In a very real sense Meg prepared me for my wife, and for that I'll be eternally grateful.

It's painful still that it didn't work out with Meg, but if all that Meg said about me is true, and that she thinks that I'll be a great companion and husband, then I hope and pray that I'll be worthy of that for whomever God has in store for me. I suspect there is a woman out there walking this earth, destined to be my wife, and I imagine that she's wondering when we'll meet, just as I do. I suspect as well that when we finally meet and marry, both of us will be grateful for the other and thank God that all of our other relationships never worked out. I'm not at that point now, but I do feel peace about it.

Meg's not for me. It's painful and sad, but there's peace in the loss of her.

I'm OK with it. I don't like it, but "Thy will, not mine" is all I can say.

That's the only source of peace.

It's still hard, but today was an important day.

This book is closed, though I will continue to pray for her every day. I have come to a point where I realize her happiness and joy is one of the most important things I care about, if not the most important. I want her in heaven, more than anything in all the world! I can't imagine that God will ignore that prayer!

Man, I'm in a major funk. I wrote for a couple of hours today and I find what I'm writing is very difficult. I reliving memories that were very painful for me and it takes its toll on me. I know I need to write my story, but it's hard. But I think all great things are difficult, and I truly believe that what I'm writing needs to be written, but that doesn't make it any easier.

And today, I accidentally sent a draft of an email to Meg. I wrote it several months ago when I received that random text message out of the blue saying that "Megan" was in love with someone else. I happened to be looking through my draft mailbox and saw it there, and it accidentally got sent. I've purposely kept communication with Meg at a bare bones minimum, in fact only once since November of last year, and I certainly didn't want that email sent. It caused me to think about her more, and she already replied and it makes me keenly aware of how much I miss her, and how much I enjoyed her company and that I'm still very much in love with her.

God help me, but will those feelings ever go away? I've been apart from her longer than we were together.

Heavy sigh.

Incidentally, she doesn't know anything about the text messages, which is as I suspected, but I didn't need to send the email to confirm that. Sending the email seems pretty pathetic, even if it was accidental. Oh well, what's done is done I guess.

Tragedy

I fear I may have lost a favorite tree in my backyard. I can only imagine that the damage it's suffered is the result of a lightning strike. I went into my backyard to mow the lawn during a break in the rain that seems to be falling all the time these days, and I noticed that the storms has produced a lot of debris on the ground that needed to be raked up. That's not unusual, but the amount seemed to be unusual. As I neared the back of my yard, I noticed a huge piece of bark lying in my neighbors backyard and I expected to see the a limb had fallen, which happens from time to time. But then as I scanned his backyard again, I saw more and more evidence of something major that had happened, and then I finally looked up at my tree. This is what I saw today:



The gash in the tree has got to be nearly thirty feet long. I don't think it's going to make it, which means I'll have to have it cut down.

We'll see what the Forestry Forum says about the subject though--they'll give me a wealth of information. If it does need to come down, that puppy's going to be milled into lumber, right in my backyard, since this summer I'm going to be getting my sawmill running again. And if that's the case, there will be a lot of knotty pine furniture in my future. I can't fathom hauling an 80 year old tree off to the land fill. That would make me sick!

I've loved this tree immensely. A neighborhood hawk has perched on it's branches many times, and for the time I lived in my house without a laptop, I always enjoyed looking out at my backyard trees from my office upstairs. I'll be bummed if it's got to go.

I'm sitting here tonight at home wishing I had a concert. I have the week off, which is very nice, but I don't really enjoy being at home alone on a Saturday sometimes. I think my cross is this lonely house and my bachelor existence. There's no taking that one up--it just is what my life is.

And I grow weary of it. But I suppose that's where the rubber hits the road for me, in light of what I wrote the other night.

A Poem about Meg

Schism

It is like a death, this loss of you,
a loss that I do not understand.
Yet this I know:
you love me not.

Your love for me has
shriveled and dried.
Scorched by a hellish sun,
it is desiccated to a gritty dust.

I grasp at the remnant of my dreams,
but they pour through my fingers,
blown by a bitter wind,
irretrievably scattered into the chasm between us.

A student of mine today gave me some good news: he and his girlfriend became engaged this past weekend. I congratulated him and told him that this Thanksgiving will certainly be one where he'll have plenty to be thankful for and he agreed. I patted him on the back and wished he and his fiancee all the best. I'm happy for him.

At the same time, there's something that saddens me. I think about the Richard Russo quote that I put on my blog awhile back: Lives are like rivers. Eventually they go where they must, not where we want them to. How I envy my student! He's 23 and he'll probably be married when he's 24. By my age, he'll have been married 13 years, assuming he and his wife stay together, which I think is a safe assumption. For me to be married for 13 years, I'd be 50. How I wish I had found my wife at an earlier age, but this is a useless exercise. The river of my life has taken me where it must while the river of his life has led him at an early age to the woman he will share his life. Why this happens to some and not to others we will never know--only God knows. All I know is that I desperately long for the companionship of a wife and hope and pray that she might be found just around the next bend.

I think this is more keenly felt by me when the holidays approach. I made an apple tart today for a meeting and everyone enjoyed it. I made sure to leave a piece for our host's wife who appeared in the kitchen at the end of our meeting. She was beginning to prepare for Thanksgiving and was planning to make a cranberry coffee cake tonight. While watching my friend's wife prepare dessert I was suddenly struck with the beauty of that domestic scene. What hit me at that moment was how much I would have enjoyed celebrating the holidays with Meg, a woman who enjoys food and cooking as much as I do, and who enjoys planning for a celebration as much as I do too. It caused me to heave some heavy sighs.

I still miss Meg immensely, though I realize that we will never be together. I'm trying to come to terms with this, but on days like today, and in moments like this one, I feel nothing but a gaping void which I feel can only be filled by her. It's tremendously sad for me.

Sometimes I wonder if Meg rejecting me is a blessing in disguise. I think I'll love the woman who chooses me all the more because of it.

A poem for this night

The New Silence

There are times
when the heart closes down,
the metal grate drawn
and padlocked,
the owner's footprints covered by snow.

Someone may come to peer through the glass,
but soon leaves.
Someone may come to clean, but turns away.

What is still inside
settles down for the darkness: clocks stop,
newspapers pass out of date.

The new silence goes unheard
under so many grindings of engines,
so many sounds of construction.

Only the three pigeons,
refusing to eat,
lower their heads and grieve.

--Jane Hirshfield in The Lives of the Heart

Some more poetry

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here:--
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

--William Wordsworth

Some Poetry

THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME

by: William Carlos Williams

Sorrow is my own yard

where the new grass

flames as it has flamed

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year.

Thirtyfive years

I lived with my husband.

The plumtree is white today

with masses of flowers.

Masses of flowers

load the cherry branches

and color some bushes

yellow and some red

but the grief in my heart

is stronger than they

for though they were my joy

formerly, today I notice them

and turned away forgetting.

Today my son told me

that in the meadows,

at the edge of the heavy woods

in the distance, he saw

trees of white flowers.

I feel that I would like

to go there

and fall into those flowers

and sink into the marsh near them.

Thoughts On a Dreary Saturday Night

People ask me how I'm doing lately. I'm never really sure what to tell them--should I be honest with them? Do I cover it over for the sake of social decorum?

The truth is, I'm doing terribly. I'm in mud and quicksand and feel like everything I do to try to extricate myself from the morass just causes me to be sucked in deeper. I have no energy for anything--I take no delight in anything and joy is completely absent from my life. I take that back: I had one moment of joy this week, on stage, while playing Sibelius's Fifth Symphony. Apparently music can enter the cold, dark place that is my soul right now. Because of Sibelius, I had about a minute of sunshine during the dress rehearsal. Hopefully it will repeat tonight during our concert. It's glorious music, written by a chronic Scandinavian drunk. Hope in the face of hopelessness from a fellow depressed Finn.

It's amazing that someone has the power to impact my life so much. Better to have loved and lost, I know, but it's hard at this moment to remember the times of joy that we had. And when I do, it just adds to the pain of losing her. I can understand the appeal that Buddhism has for people who've suffered great pain: eliminate pain and suffering by squelching desire. Of course it's absurd, but it is tempting in the moments I find myself of late to want to never risk like I did with Meg again. Squelching desire and emotions--that is the safe choice, the coward's choice. I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands again:

"Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."

I pray that I can view the pain now as part of the happiness then. But of course that's the case with death; with a relationship, if things work out, the joy then is compounded into even more joy now. In this case, my loss is a loss permeated with rejection. It's hard to think of the joy then, without inducing heart rending pain now, a pain that tempts one to never risk feeling such pain ever again. I suppose I'll be healed from this pain when I indeed am willing to risk loving again.

That could be a very, very long time.

I sometimes wonder if Meg could possibly fathom the impact she has had on me.

Wow.

The State of Things

MIRAGE

by: Christina Rossetti

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,

Was but a dream; and now I wake

Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,

For a dream's sake.







I hang my harp upon a tree,

A weeping willow in a lake;

I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt

For a dream's sake.







Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;

My silent heart, lie still and break:

Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed

For a dream's sake.

All I Can Say Is Wow...

Everyone's gone through pain in their life, either through the loss of a friend or family member, or even the loss of a family pet, which often can bring the most profound sense of loss anyone has ever felt. Losing someone you love through breaking off a relationship is something everyone's gone through before too, which is obviously where I'm living these days. I know I've become somewhat of a One-Note Danny with my blog, but writing about what I'm going through is cathartic for me, so bear with me kind reader.

The reason all I can say is, "wow," is that it's absolutely amazing to me how loss can just hit you like a lead balloon, completely unexpectedly, and no matter how much you'd like to numb it, the pain is there in its all consuming reality. I am absolutely bowled over by the sense of loss I feel sometimes when I think about Meg, and just a half hour ago or so it hit me hard--really, really hard. It's absolutely shocking to me how strongly I feel this loss, particularly when I look at myself in a dispassionate and purely anthropological way. In that light, it's freaking unbelievable.

There are two "wow" factors: how incredibly strong my love is for Meg--I never imagined it possible to love someone so much. The flipside of that "wow" factor is the searing pain I feel now that she's gone from my life. Up until now, I would say that such strong feelings were inconceivable to me. I'm stunned, quite honestly, anytime I feel either.

What blows me away even more is that over time, love between husband and wife (in a healthy relationship) will grow even deeper and stronger. It begs the question: What must it be like to lose a spouse? And I can't have a way to understand the love that a mother or father has for their children. It makes me wonder at the tremendous loss my brothers and sisters-in-law must have felt when they each lost an unborn child. One thing I am certain of: Love is not finite. It grows and continues to grow, and there's always \room for more. What a gift that is to us. But then when the object of our love is lost--can their be greater pain?

Sometimes when I feel the pain, I wish I could numb it, turn it off, or excise it from my heart, but I can't, and honestly, I really don't want to do that. I think that's incredibly unhealthy--to willfully choose to ignore the pain one is feeling isn't good at all. I am living in it, each day, and I'm not going to kill it because I don't like it. I think there is much yet for me to learn.

As is the case for me so often, I think of C.S. Lewis. One of the best quotes from one of my favorite movies, Shadowlands, speaks to how I feel:

"Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."

I'm not choosing safety.

Home Sweet Home?

I just got home from a fun trip this weekend to the U.P. with my brother Jim's family. We had a great time, and it was a shame that I had to cut it short. After the long drive back I was looking forward to getting home, but when I walked in tonight I was instantly seized with how this is really just one big empty house and how tremendously sad I still am at having lost Meg. It's still really, really hard.