Unequal task! a passion to resign,
\nFor hearts so touch’d, so pierc’d, so lost as mine.
\nEre such a soul regains its peaceful state,
\nHow often must it love, how often hate!
\nHow often hope, despair, resent, regret,
\nConceal, disdain \u0097 do all things but forget.
\nBut let Heav’n seize it, all at once ’tis fir’d;
\nNot touch’d, but rapt; not waken’d, but inspir’d!
\nOh come! oh teach me nature to subdue,
\nRenounce my love, my life, myself \u0097 and you.
\nFill my fond heart with God alone, for he
\nAlone can rival, can succeed to thee.<\/p>\n
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
\nThe world forgetting, by the world forgot.
\nEternal sunshine of the spotless mind!<\/p>\n
— Alexander Pope, from “Eloisa to Abelard”<\/i><\/p>\n
I have often felt “unequal” to the task of “resign”ing “passion”, of one kind or another. At times, it is the hardest thing in the world to do. Amputees talk about feeling the ghost of their missing limbs and there have been times in my life when whatever “passion” I was trying to “resign” came across to me like the ghost of an amputated limb. Where is it?? Where is it?? I miss that passion … I can still FEEL it alive in me … and yet the dream is dead. <\/p>\n
Trying to find “peace” again – peace of mind, peace in the soul, whatever – is strenuous. Sometimes I have thought it was impossible. I would throw up my hands in defeat. “Okay. I cannot get over this on my own. I will always miss this person. Always.”<\/p>\n
And there are those in my past who, yes, I will always miss. The amputee never stops missing the foot, but he gets used to living without it. That’s the best analogy I can think of.<\/p>\n
But while I am in the midst of the passion, or in the midst of trying to ‘resign’ a passion, trying to make my mind “spotless” – my sense is that: The perpetual loss of this person is going to sap the rest of my life of joy, peace, love.<\/em> It is tragic. It feels tragic.<\/p>\n Time usually does away with such extremes.<\/p>\n I miss certain people. All the time. All the time I miss them. And yet it’s okay. For the most part. It’s okay, and it’s right that I miss them. They had a huge impact on my life, I loved them dearly once upon a time, and so missing them is part of the landscape. It’s bittersweet, yes, but it’s livable. It does become bearable.<\/p>\n I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/i> last night. I was engrossed from beginning to end, on multiple levels but afterwards – afterwards – came a bit of a meltdown. My brain full of thoughts. I felt heavy with thinking. So much, the movie brought up so much. I had intense dreams all night, woke up with no memory of any of them, and then sat at my kitchen table from 6 am til 8:30 drinking coffee, and writing. Writing out my thoughts.<\/p>\n I’m still not even sure what my thoughts are.<\/p>\n I’ve got a couple of insistent ghosts. You could probably even sense them around me, if you were attuned to that kind of thing. I’m not saying I’m unique at all. We’ve all got stuff we carry around with us. The detritus of life. Flotsam, jetsam, whatever.<\/p>\n This would be all the stuff you bring to the “memory-erasure” doctor in the film. I’ve got a nice big shoebox of letters which I could hand over. It’s all there.<\/p>\n At the moment, in my life, I am not sitting around living in the past. Regretting stuff. At least not how I used to. I don’t sit around over my shoebox of relics, and mourn the days gone by.<\/p>\n However, there are times, times when I least expect it, when I am ambushed by a memory.<\/p>\n Memories are interesting that way. They’re connected to the senses. (Mostly to smell. This is why you can get a whiff of apple pie baking, and suddenly be transported back 30 years in time.) I can work to resolve whatever residual issues I have with this or that person, I can forgive them, I can forgive myself, I can talk about it with friends, decide what happened, try to figure out the problems, but it is an impossibility that the mind will ever become “spotless”. Stuff does not just vanish. Sunshine is not eternal.<\/p>\n I’ll be strolling down the street, minding my own business, and hear a snippet of a song from a car and feel like I got the wind knocked out of me, a memory rushing back, a sense of a person long gone suddenly right there- all from the sound of the song.<\/p>\n It happens very rarely. But it does happen.<\/p>\n It’s not exactly a pleasant feeling. I certainly wouldn’t say that those moments were pleasant. It’s a reminder of the amputated foot. Of all that has been lost along the journey. <\/p>\n But I wouldn’t choose to have those memories completely erased (if I could, I mean, like in the movie.)<\/p>\n Sometimes, in my irrational moments, I’ll think: Jesus, when will it end? Will I be 70 years old and having a freak out every time I hear Lady Marmalade? When the hell will it end?<\/p>\n Well. Maybe that’s just who I am. Heart of glass and all. Not too many people get in there with me but when they do it is impossible for me to get them out. Love does not turn to hate with me. It just doesn’t. I have wished that it would. I have thought: “God, it would be so much easier if I could just despise this person!” So perhaps that is just one of my lots in life, and I should just take note of it. (For example: “Tell DJ to leave ‘Lady Marmalade’ off play-list at my wedding reception at all costs. Refuse to pay him if ‘Lady Marmalade’ is heard at any time.”)<\/p>\n Yes, I have a memory of hugging a certain man, and touching his face and his eyebrows and his cheek-bones, “memorizing” it. Because it was a good-bye. I felt like my heart was breaking. <\/p>\n But I also have a memory of sitting on his lap, and talking about JD Salinger, and laughing like maniacs.<\/p>\n Both exist. Both memories say to me: HE. The agony of the good-bye – and <\/i>the hilarity of our conversations, the accord I felt with this particular human being.<\/p>\n I had never really thought about it all that much, though. I don’t think too much anymore about certain things, certain people, because, like I said, I do not want to live in the past, and spend too much time regretting things.<\/p>\n I am fortunate to have loved a couple of people with all my heart. I am fortunate. (Say it again, Sheila, maybe you’ll believe it the third time.)<\/p>\n There’s another good-bye memory. In the airport in San Francisco. I was boarding the plane by myself, and I turned around and saw him, standing back there, watching me leave, and because of how the light was, he was completely in shadow, and looked like a black-paper-cut-out, with his hand raised in farewell.<\/p>\n I saw that and thought I would not be able to bear the pain. Whatever you want to call it. The psychic pain. My heart pushing up out of my chest.<\/p>\n However. I did survive it. Of course I did.<\/p>\n And when I think about that man, my first boyfriend, the first image that comes to mind is certainly not the black-paper cut-out. It’s the uproarious laughter, it’s the making up songs, reading books together, talking late into the night about movies.<\/p>\n I don’t mean to sound Pollyanna-ish here. “Embrace the bad with the good! There are so many good things in the world!!” I’ve had enough agonizing good-byes, frankly. I don’t want to have another such good-bye ever again.<\/p>\n So much does the heart re-bound from such things that, again, I feel: If I had to go through another such good-bye, I might not survive.<\/p>\n Funny. The heart doesn’t learn. At least mine doesn’t.<\/p>\n The ending of the film packed a huge punch for me. I felt a weird tragic hope rise up inside of me, and I thought: God. Life just beats people up, doesn’t it.<\/em> Heartache just keeps coming. It never ends. You either say Yes to life or you say No. You get busy living or you get busy dying.<\/p>\n I will always miss those I have let go of. This doesn’t have to be a tragedy, I suppose. I guess it can be a massive fierce gift. I could not “subdue”, I could not “renounce my love, my life, myself” – even though sometimes I have yearned for that. I have yearned to renounce “my love” because I wanted some peace of mind. God, just let this end! Let me sleep at night! Will I miss this or that person forever?<\/p>\n Maybe it sounds like the movie upset me. I suppose it did, but not in a bad way. It stirred shit up. Sometimes you can get too rigid. Too inflexible in how you tell yourself the story of your own life. <\/p>\n I was completely wrapped up in the journey of these two characters. I was rooting for them so hard I didn’t even realize I was, until the very end. It seemed to matter to me, so much, that they give it another go. I took it very personally.<\/p>\n And then, when the movie ended, all I could do was think about my own life.<\/p>\n The proof of a meaningful piece of art: when you walk away from it and you start talking about yourself. When the work of art reveals something to you about yourself. Makes you think about your choices, who you are.<\/p>\n I spent the morning amongst my ghosts. Reacquainting myself with them, the memories I love and the memories I am glad have dimmed with time … Cherishing all of them, though. All of those memories.<\/p>\n I would not choose to have any of them erased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unequal task! a passion to resign, For hearts so touch’d, so pierc’d, so lost as mine. Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state, How often must it love, how often hate! How often hope, despair, resent, regret, Conceal, disdain … Continue reading