I have journaled much about the role of friends, especially as it involves those “old old” friends that disappoint to the core. I am learning that the sting of disappointment is like being stuck with porcupine quills.
The barbed tip hurts, and removing by yanking on the quill is painful. However, like everything else in life, you begin to evaluate how to ease the pain of extrication. If I had only known when Milly got these quills what I do now, she would not have suffered so much. Tip: you first have to cut them in half so that they go limp, the fish-hook tip relaxes, and you can pull them out softly and with reduced pain because the quills become flaccid and pliable!
I am spending much time with good friends. Some I have known for a few months. Others, for a couple of decades. And some, for a few weeks. I value their support, compassion, and their reaching out when you least expect it. Most of all, I cherish the laughter we share together. A hearty good laugh is a balm for the soul.
Recently, I heard from friends from my youth. They brought back a torrent of emotions, for they helped me remember some of the “good old days” of yore, when we were studying and working and carefree. How lucky can one be?
I am blessed.
The Arrow And The Song
Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
An amazing photographer, Kim Allen Goff, posted this beautiful photo on social media and commented,
“I’ve loved to peer into windows since I was a child and the older the house the better! The reflections on these windowpanes spoke the language of November.”
Immediately, her comment and photo reminded me of this Robert Frost poem, below. I read somewhere that, in this particular poem, “Sorrow finds beauty in its desolation”.
It is true.
Sorrow does bring forth reflection, and from that reflection springs clarity of understanding, and from that clarity -eventually- those turbulent waters reach their destination and may turn into a beautiful and calm and crystalline cove or lake. So there. I have to thank Kim for making me be happy about my birthday month! There is beauty in those reflections of the bare, the withered tree…
My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted grey Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise.
Many a time I reflect on the true meaning of a cultural divide. It is so much more than one loving cilantro and spicy foods, the other loving bland and simple concoctions. Or preferring novels to autobiographies. Or fancying opera to rock and roll.
We dismiss that cultural divide to our peril. Sometimes, it can easily be bridged. But other times, we don’t realize that, while the crack to cross appears narrow, when you get close to it you discover it is an abyss, wider and deeper than expected.
Take the Argentine tango. Al Pacino in A Scent of a Woman, Arnold Scharzenegger in True Lies, for example. The truth is that the famous Argentine singer of yore, Carlos Gardel, composed this song, which actually refers to a gambler losing a horse’s race “por una cabeza”(by just a head).
Today, some would say the Hollywood movies engaged in “cultural appropriation” and some would be crying crocodile tears. The truth is that beautiful music transcends cultures and is universal. However, while we all can appreciate the rhythm, the exotic movements, the bandoneon, we might have a harder time fully understanding the meaning behind the lyrics.
Which leads me to another rumination of mine. Many times I find that certain melodies, lyrics, stories and poems that I used to love or made me ponder then, were somewhat pointing me to “something” that only now, at this stage in my life, I can finally begin to understand.
Were they part of what I call the tender tendrils of the cobweb of life that we don’t see until the sun hits the morning dew on that cobweb and then, BINGO, it appears in all its majesty? I’ve encountered this phenomenon countless times, ergo my conclusion that we, life, experiences are all linked in some way through those almost unseen tendrils until that light gives me that “Eureka” moment.
The song, raw and brutal, is the realization that a betrayal brought forth depredation. That devastation does not end in a “Hah, revenge is best served cold” moment. It only highlights the horrors of Dorian Gray.
The tango crooner (Carlos Gardel) cannot handle the awareness that he is now without friends, having lived a wrong and wicked moment, without honor. And the object of his downfall is devastatingly pitiful.
Whether man or woman, I think we can understand the angst. At the end of it all, I guess, when we sow with meanness and lies we reap bitterness, sadness and sorrow, and when reality hits it is but the awareness that its genesis is the grotesque and rotten fruit of an obsessive and wrongful yearning.
Unfortunately, no English translation captures the essence of the words. You have to understand the language, the slang, the setting, the idiosyncrasies. However, I merged a couple of translations below, to try and convey the tango’s ferocious punch to the solar plexus.
And, for the life of me, I know for a fact that I would not like to be remembered as a featherless rooster!
Alone, faded, worn out, I saw her this dawn Leaving a cabaret,
A full yard long of neck and A hanger of a neckline under the chin. Bow-legged, dressed like a young broad, Dyed and flirting her nudity.
Seemed like a featherless rooster Mockingly showing off her pecked hide.
I, that know when I can't take it anymore, Just ran away from there seeing her like that, Trying not to cry.
And to think that ten years ago she was my madness That I went as far as betrayal for her beauty. That what is now a wreck Was my sweetheart, where I lost my dignity.
That nuts for her beauty, I stole my mother's bread I became mean and sinful. That I was left without a friend, That I lived in bad faith.
That she had me on my knees Without morals, like a beggar when she left. I never thought I would see her in a requiescat in pace As cruel as today.
Look, if it's not to commit suicide, that for that old junk I was left as what I am now. Fierce revenge that of time That makes you see destroyed what you loved.
This encounter has hurt me so much That if I think about it more, I end up poisoned, Tonight I get drunk well, Thoroughly drunk, So I wont think..
Dum Spiro Spero 