Anyway, I decided I had to get the plaque out of my van and up there. I will be taking Jazz, and leaving the state. The plaque needed to stay with you. I can hear your laughter ridiculing me now "you spent how much on that thing? Oh Great, you could have bought something worthwhile for THAT!"
It was hot. I had to borrow a big mega drill from work; this, after having the shop drill holes in the plaque for me. Then I went to the hardware store, and bought a big box of brass socket head screws.... not that I needed 200 of them, but because they came with the socket drill bit, which I didn't have, so yeah, I bought the entire box.
Jazz inhaled a foxtail on the road just before we got there. "Oh great", I thought, "I'll be getting another plaque for her to put next to yours".
I've never seen a ranger up there. I did that day; grading the fire road. So I threw my sarong over the plaque, my backpack sat on the bench, and I took photos til he passed.
Jazz just layed there trying to snort the foxtail out, protesting it's presence; unintended, unwanted, like your dying was.
It took two trips, one vet bill, but I got it done. The lake will always be you for me.... all the trails, the map we spent an entire night making, the names... arguing over what names to give the trails...
I hiked the other end tonight; it was windy, unusually windy and cool for this time of year. As Jazz and I sat on the bench, tears came, tears I haven't felt in quite a few months. The words of a stranger came to me, a stranger yet one who befriended me yesterday. Her words were "sit, and let the thoughts come, go through you, but don't interact with them". Funny how a call about a mortgage debt goes astray.... I wondered if this one was being "recorded for quality purposes", and if so, she'd probably lose her job for addressing the human element, not just the financial.
As the wind was blowing, I was praying, no, more like pleading, to blow these thoughts away.... to have them blow right through me and be taken off to a distant land..... and immediately as I write this, I am struck by the lyrics of the song you shared with me....from "Soul Meets Body", the following refrain now echos
Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they’re far more suited than here
It's a very cold July night Trailrunner, PPW, Heartworm. I've put these things where they belong, I hope. I leave them behind so that others may know of you too; that others may wonder who was this man who so touched someone's life; what was he like; and for those that did know you, that they may remember you always upon this hill, see you running yet.
I was never very good at letting go of anything.... maybe because what little I had, I treasured.... treasured it all the more because I know the things of this world pass through my hands, my heart... I cannot hold onto them. But I so want to, for a while, belong to someone, have someone belong to me, to share our lives, to befriend one another.
and here I've gone again breaking your "two sentence rule".
What is your attraction to this man? Why the deep, on-going grief?
ReplyDeleteIn all your anecdotes concerning him, not once do you report any receprocity, emotionally, physically, socially, etc. directed from him to you. Have you confused nastiness and insults for affection? If someone says they will dump your cremains in a hole and then urinate on them, they arent feeling any tenderness towards you. Are you wanting attention even if it is derogatory, insulting, demeaning?
I put forth that Mr. Weller is largely your fantasy. You never experienced emotional or physical or spiritual intimacy with him. Am I right? In fact, all you did was hike with him. There was nohing to "learn" from the guy. You came up with novel thoughts on your own.
I suggest you projected personal psychological needs upon him, which is easy to do when you have a relatively blank slate (i.e. not much experential data) to relate to. It is not the death of the man you have grieved, but the death of your image of the man and the permanent cancellation of all possibility of your imaginery man ever relating to you.
You have no idea who Paul Weller was. He never wasted one moment pondering your personhood. Why should you waste your time pondering his?
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteMy observations and comments:
First error is the mischaracterization of introspection and contemplation as "ongoing grief".
Second, I do not subscribe to the idea that in order for love to be "felt", it must be reciprocal, that a mirror image of what is extended must be returned. May I suggest that love that seeks it's own echo is not always love; sometimes it is narcissism masquerading as love.
Third, one must be able to entertain the idea that an exchange made in jest can contain within it seeds of camaraderie. How a statement is delivered carries as much meaning, if not more, than the words uttered. Your interpretation and understanding is circumscribed by your own experiential plane and suggests a lack of imagination on your part, or, in your own words, you are drawing your understanding from a relatively blank experiential slate. I have provided no situational context, so the reader is left to impose their own.
Perhaps I was crying, scared, and he knew how to tease me out of it.... perhaps it was his way of ending a conversation and dismissing an idea he found uncomfortable.... my own death... there's a thousand possible scenarios on the situational context in which those words were uttered. That you can only generate a negative scenario and explanation indicates a poverty in your own experience and understanding.
Sometimes, even the profane has within it nourishment that helps us grow.... as a matter of fact, fertilizer is seldom made from perfume, but from the profane. The harsher the environment for the grape, the better tasting the wine.
Lastly, although you suggest I did not know this man at all, you go on to imply not only did you, but you knew him so well that you can state what went on in his head, as well as his heart, and particularly regarding me.
yes, anonymous, there is psychological projection going on.... and it seems it's not restricted to my musings alone.