Curves

I was driving through the countryside listening to Beethoven. Not many know he’s the one I go to when life gets hard. Dear Ludwig just has a way of mixing together different kinds of power in a potpourri of waves unequaled in the history of music (in my humble amateurish opinion). Majesty, sorrow, joy, passion – all to the max. He was no mere man. He raised above life itself. Of all the people in the past I might ever be offered to meet, I’d choose him. Yeah, I realize he was impossible. But then, so am I.

Indeed, like too many others, I like to push aside a thorough examination of myself. It’s just not fun, ain’t it? I’m quick to judge everybody, to find faults and solutions in other lives but my own. I get tired of waiting for them to fix things – lately, when I realize they simply won’t, I let it go. I’m tired of battling. This doesn’t cut to the chase though.

So when I do make the effort to look inside, I discover not only dark spots which still need more than a gentle scrubbing, but also decently clean ones, most with bitter memories attached. For a while, those kind of memories made me angry, or sad, or – best case scenario – annoyed. The ongoing war during this past year has had a strange effect on these memories. I see them as lessons now. Lessons which I had to learn. Sure, I sort of knew this in my head too, but now this realization is down in my heart.

I learned, for instance, that people can be well intentioned and clueless at the same time – and that it is useless to debate, and definitely wrong to shake them, in the hope that somehow they’ll get what they actually need to do. If one doesn’t do their own shaking inside, they’re way less likely to get… anything, really. Frustration accumulates, words get thrown in a ping-pong crossfire, everybody ends up wounded and eventually withdraws. Love melts away. Desperation creeps in and let me tell you it’s more nightmarish than all of Halloween since its inception.

I also learned invincibility is okay only and only when related to God, somehow. It matters little that I’ve been invincible so far if joy is nowhere in sight. A kingdom for a cup of joy, that’s the exchange I’d make now.

And what to make of the constant contretemps, when I’m up and he is low, and I provide the shoulder as a good mother I’ve learned to be – but when I’m exhausted… well, I gotta suck it up and still provide, right? Bloody curves. And I’m not talking about my figure, so no, pun unintended.

I did learn to anticipate, too. There is a tingle in my limbs when I can’t take it anymore. That is the moment when I must detach, immediately! To avoid hurting, to re-establish that precarious balance, to simply continue. Like a wave – in and out, up and down. Alone, ephemeral, but whose existence cannot be denied.

Do I want to forgive and forget? Ha, do I have any choice? I can eternally wrestle with injustice and sadness and unhealed trauma – or I can accept that mistakes may have a way of blossoming into something else and take that at face value. I’ve found little comfort in being intelligent and finding solutions. The comfort is always in a real hand squeeze and the smile in the eyes, not the lips…

Hey! Last curve of the road, here’s the cottage. Driving done. Thank God for gps. Thank God for Beethoven. And for the dear friend who’s lent me her house for free. I have no right to judge, others or myself. I find the key, open the door and step in. Tears are indeed the best gift I can bring to the altar. As they go down the curves of my cheeks, I am always hoping they would be the last, and fully knowing there is no such thing.