Distance from Family, Distance from Self

    Most of us want intimacy, and to connect. When we are pushed away, when we feel isolated, alone, not connected or even not understood or accepted, we suffer.

    Yes? But many of us want to be isolated and alone, or eschew the very people or things that wish to commune with us!

    Ah, the paradoxes that we encounter and face.

    I wanted to talk to mom a few minutes ago. But, however, we all know that she has been gone for more than eleven years. My wife attended a memorial for the dead in a cemetery yesterday. All Saints Day. A Catholic tradition? A universal urge and instinct? Commune and connect to the past and the dead.

    These people reached out to their parents, their ancestors.

    We dream and we talk, we sing, and we dance.

    Like at the big football game yesterday. Lots of songs, quite a bit of dancing.

    Noises, sounds, cheers and jeers.

    Yells and chants, costumes and colors.

    She said she O.D.s on music. We all have our drugs.

    I met folks who attended Indiana University, or who are from the state. My native Hoosier place. Places.

    Of course, my parents went there because of Sierra Leone, and Kennedy, and Nixon sinking but before that saving himself with television.

    Ahh, the developments of Philo Farnsworth and all the creators and innovators, bringing us the technology and modern day advancements of where we are today and where we will go tomorrow.

    Shakespeare saw the future, but he saw the whole thing.

    Maybe.

    How much do we see?

    Distance from others, distance from ourselves. Closeness and proximity, how we come close to God or the sublime. Peace and tranquility, prosperity and hope.

    A good, even keel. Hemingway sought it all and many different ways.

    

    Like all other artists and livers.

    Count me, and you, among them.

    Amen.