Look, I Don't Know Which One Of Y'all Need To Hear This Right Now. But Just Because Something Comes Back

Life was like an ocean and she was a wave I was just getting tossed in.

People will envy your strength and success but not the struggle that brought you to it.

Not even Poetry within all it's meter and form, within all it's unstructured beauty, can adequately capture you.

Night after Night I lie awake. Eyes closed; Mind spinning with Fractured Verses.

The Poet E.E. Cummings once described the moon as "the Lily of the Heavens". Our word Lily comes from the Greek word Lilium which could mean "Pure", the Greeks called the flower Leirion meaning "True". The painter, Claude Monet very famously painted a collection of over two hundred and fifty impressionist art pieces of water lilies, that specific genus is called Nymphaea, which has the root of the Greek word Nymph, meaning bride. Some now use that word in relation to beauty. A large portion of Monet's paintings were created after the death of his wife, during and/or post-world-war-two. And some of these paintings as well were composed while he had cataracts. The products of the clouded vision of his eyes. I have been lucky enough to witness some of the paintings myself, some here in Indy, while we had them on exhibit during Newfield's "Monet and Friends", or on their permeant exhibit in Chicago, or in Cleveland or where have you. I think it's something so beautiful that we get to interact with art on these levels where our human experience is so contextual and subjective. Just so particular to us as singular individuals. Like you probably will view George Hitchcock's Calypso in a totally different light than I will. I will see it as a piece of art depicting a woman, mourning and grieving the loss of her lover Odysseus. Longing, Pining, Loving. You might just see it as a painting of a sea nymph, a "water lily" one might say now that you know some other words. But art is also objective, and out-of-context sometimes too. Monet states in his own observation and intention of his works “it would produce the illusion of an endless whole, of water with no horizon and no shore”. That is to say like the reach of their intention is finite, but our interaction and interpretation of it is in-finite. It is not definite. An “Endless Whole”. You might know that I, as an individual, I don't view grief/love, joy/sorrow as separate things. They are the same coin, and they buy into this great experience called life. And in contradiction to that, they are probably not too dissimilar as well to “water with no horizon or shore”. Monet probably painted these painting and thought of his wife, Monet probably painted and thought of the war going on around him. E.E. Cummings probably wrote his poems at about or around the same time Monet was painting his collection. While also(!) George Hitchcock was painting "Calypso". Isn’t that beautiful? The Rendering of Associations. I'd like to call it. If we use some entomologic arguments here based off of what I’ve told you in this ‘dissertation’ (jokingly, basically), one might be able build off what Cummings wrote as "the Moon, the true pure beauty of the Heavens.”. Like what have I spent the last five-hundred-some-odd words writing about here. Painters and Paintings? Poetry? Love? Loss? Have I been writing this to the Moon, or is it to you maybe? Or this to one particular special person right now that I think about in my reflections of the moon, or flowers or water? These ‘Illusions’ as Monet might describe or in my case here an allusion of a seamless image. “The Rendering of Associations of The Endless Whole of Life.”

I don't know always the directions I'm meant to move in. But I do know the distance is either damned or darned by your dictation.

You are not a finished product. And no you will never be. You have to remember you often sow seeds you'll never see.

In our world for some reason we do things , for a main reason. And that's for our own gain or advantage. I do this, I get money, I do that, I get connections. I complete this task I obtain something of value to me. And if somehow we give out love, usually that's a byproduct. Meaning that was not purposeful, and not the intention.

But what if that was not the case, what if our reason was love, and love solely? And anything else is gain? I don't think it'd matter honestly. Because if we treasured those that we love like the treasures they are, we would know we have what we need. We've lost sight of those ideas, our virtues are corrupt. Even our actions lie.

There was this moment yesterday morning around 6:30 am. It was after a rough night. A fair amount of people had called off from work, we were short staffed, and it felt like everything that could be going wrong. Was going wrong. Eventually we got over whatever hurdle we were facing, and we moved onto our next plane assignment. The flight was an international one, so they load the pilots up with food. Sometimes they dont eat all of it, they might give out whatever is left to the workers offloading the plane. There was Cheesecake on this particular flight that they didn't eat. I got dibs on it. It was a frustrating night, and I felt gross and sweaty. I was exhausted. But there was this moment where I was sitting in the bay door, watching the sunrise, eating on some of best chocolate cheesecake I've had in a while, and for some reason my brain went to that quote that Wanda said to Vision. "You are my Sadness, and My Hope. But Mostly You are my Love." We get these moments in our lives where we can get Angry and Upset, or where all we are is Sadness and what Pain we might feel. But there are others where we get those moments in the sun, at least in my experience, these precious moments despite whatever trial and tribulation I am going through, I can whisper in quiet satisfaction to the world or maybe to myself "But, Mostly you are my Love."

Do you think that Eurydice ever forgave Orpheus? I know I would. I can't help but think we all would look back. Maybe it's just the way we are born? Already gripped and snatched into worry, fear, anxiety and uncertainty. But Apollo gave his Son the gift of a Heavy Heart. And the Courage that comes with it. Even Eurydice made the mistake to be distracted and wrapped up in the clouds, only to be bitten by what's on the ground. But how could you not be? The songs of creation that made even trees dance and boulders sing, the beats were to her name. Eurydice. A Muse to the Highest Order and Element. Orpheus was always meant to lose. Because his Love for Eurydice would always compel him to look back, and his Failure only Proves that. I could Forgive them.

On days like this I can see Autumn is nearing. I think about that Robert Frost poem, "So Dawn goes down to Day, Nothing Gold can Stay". The house will soon be warmer, the trees a little more brown, the leaves changing shades and colors, the sky always a bit more overcast, a sun more orange than yellow. Personally I think about Apple Slices, Cinnamon, Allspice and Plum Cake. And recently in this house, I have had the pleasure of hearing Owls. "Her early leaf's a flower; but only so an hour." He describes an entire season of our lives as Only so an Hour. A breath on a breeze compared to a lifetime's run. I think about Shelby Eatenton, and what she says to her Mother in Steel Magnolias. "I would rather have 30 minutes of "wonderful" than a lifetime of nothing special." Nothing Gold can stay, But I am so thankful I get to live in a world where I get to experience something as wonderful and special as an Autumn Day.