Friday, October 19, 2007

Pain From An Old Wound


Autumn makes me nostalgic for other autumns, falls to which I will never return and the whole world is dying, the leaves surround us, so beautiful in their final hour. I would take such loveliness over the spring given my nature -- I long not to be renewed mostly because of my own moral failings and laziness -- growth is a lot of work and often painful, but to be reminded of other times. And I suspect I am not alone in this -- most of the spells that show up in books and that people search for are about making lovers return and about remembering the past or forgetting it, presumably because it is too painful to endure. The present often doesn't hold up -- we are too close to it and need too much from it. Only sometimes can we see it for what it is and then we lose it by the very act of observation.

We are thoughtless in the fall, the season of pumpkins and mischief and the colored lights that line the windows, the witches that have flown into trees. It's the time of masks and spells and costumes; we can hide ourselves, lose ourselves in nostalgia, which began as a medical term meaning pain from an old wound. The trap of nostalgia is that we cannot return to the place we long for -- it is time and memory and doesn't exist. The leaves crunch under our feet, so brilliant in their hues. We can collect them, of course, press them into photo albums, take pictures of them to our heart's content, but we can never capture the abundance.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cocktail Hour
Drinking literary journal suggestion: Gertrude

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday! And happy birthday to my mother and a toast for when I see her again, together in Heaven.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The real scary thing is sin without God's foregivness.

Unknown said...

Well, I am interested in History but I am not really dealing with my past. I am making the necessary consequences but that's all. I have done mistakes and some things has hurt me but I am trying to get over my bad feelings and dealing with the future.

Anonymous said...

Lovely, thoughtful post, Michelle! It's not God's forgiveness we need; it's our own. Mistakes are how we learn and growth comes because of them.

Charles Gramlich said...

Just the other day on a gray and rainy day I said to someone how much I enjoyed such days, especially in the fall. They laughed, taking my comments for irony. But I meant it.

Cheri said...

Salute to you, Michelle, and your lovely mother.

The winds of change are blowing and we're all being pulled along in the drafts. And I agree with Robin, we do need to forgive ourselves because otherwise, how can we move on and up from them?

eric1313 said...

Blessings to you and your mother. May you indeed meet one day, but not too soon.

Whitenoise said...

Autumn is my favourite season, as well. Summer is fat and lazy, spring beautiful but busy. During winter, one endures. Autumn. That's when we realize that we need to seize the day, to enjoy what we can before the cold. Your post was thoughtful, and well-written, as always.

Nostalgia of a different sort...