warm rain

Okay, I'm ready to articulate.

What I really miss right now is warm rain.
Rain is one of those things that is symbolic of the renewal of all things internal and external, but it also has more. You physically feel it. In the same way a shower washes away dirt, rain is, for me, the cleanser of the soul...whatever that is.

I'm so frustrated today because the inevitable finally happened: I felt it break. I felt the hope I had snap into pieces. It's the thing I've been both trying desperately to avoid, and that which I've always known to be both unavoidable and necessary.
The fall downward has been, so far, slow. Maybe it was naivety, or maybe it was just more poisonous hope that made me think I could prevent this. The problem is, even if I delayed the final crash and the final breaks, it's no better sitting 100 feet from the bottom unable to go in either direction than it is to finally hit the bottom. At least at the bottom I can look around and find the best way up... or out.
I can philosophize the best way out all I want or I can sit here and feel bad for myself for finally getting here (I knew I was here because I get that queasy feeling--the paralyzing sense that everythinge's all gone awry and I am helpless to stop it). But what I need is not a philosophy on living and learning and picking myself up. I need a good, warm rain. I need to feel the death of the hope I once had wash away; I need to feel that there's room for the rebirth I so desperately need.

The problem is that it's the dead of winter.

I want to travel back to when I was 12 years old, sitting on the roof of a car under a blanket in the rain...hearing that one day life was going to catch up to me. I laughed off the idea of struggling through choices and schools and broken hearts...
But here I am; Life caught up with me...and there's no rain to wash it all away.
When my previous hopes have been again and again shattered, how can I begin again to do so?
So I will say a few things about hope.
Hope...
James Peirce, a pragmatist, had a few things to say about this interesting phenomenon:
"Most of us, for example, are naturally more sanguine and hopeful than logic would justify. We seem to be so constituted that in the absence of any facts to go upon we are happy and self-satisfied; so that the effect of experience is to continually counteract our hopes and aspirations...Where hope is unchecked by experience, it is likely that our optimism is extravagant. " From "The Fixation of Belief"
He does, however, go on to say that if natural selection has allowed this to continue, and if we are unique in this strange, illogical way of thinking, then there must be some advantage in the resulting behaviors...
So with me, being who I am, logical in every sense of the word, how do I move past this road block of experience and lack of success in order to hope once again?
I certainly can't go on blind faith, and hope for rain, today, even though that's what I feel as though I need. I have to begin with something grounded--something for which there is sufficient evidence.
Hoping for miracles is not something I'm inclined to do; for now I'm going to hope for the ordinary: for a good laugh, a hot cup of tea, an unexpected smile, a good time tonight... and hope that when I fall I'm going to find the strength to deal with it alone, or the confidence to ask for help when it's needed.

Maybe the reason I want the rain so badly is because I know that eventually a storm will stop.
A good, warm rain may be out of the question... but I'll find a way to cleanse sooner or later.
Experience tells me I'll find a way.

"Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life."
-John Updike, RIP

Saturday Mornings

"We live as we dream--alone."
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Another great author, another great book...another way to let other people say the things I am afraid and/or unable to say myself.

I'll stop using quotes soon. I'm just too frustrated write now to articulate my thoughts...
I'll post some actual thoughts later.

The amber of this moment

"'Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim,' said the loudspeaker. 'Any questions?'

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: 'Why me?'

'That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'

Yes.' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it.

'Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.'"

-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would succinctly say.

Here and now is what I am now searching to discover. What can I do today that might make the here and now just a little more bearable, or even enjoyable?
My story is not one that is special or unique--we all spend the majority of our lives alone in our searches, whether or not we are physically accompanied by people.
I have no tales of heroism or courage; just the everyday struggle to find meaning where perhaps there is none.
I have no advice to give of which the depth is more than any other educated person.
What I have is a passion to live and to discover...and to share.

I chose this passage to begin again because it is one that has stuck with me since the day I read it. The message is ten-fold, and can be seen positively or negatively. Today, I want to point out the simple message of living here, today. We cannot escape, but through memories and fantasies, that which is now. We make choices, and then choose to either choose again, or live with those choices. Time is something which I know beyond all reasonable doubt, will continue tomorrow. Unlike Mr. Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five, I move only forward; and I will continue to do only that.
But maybe the truth is, that Vonnegut is right. Maybe we are destined to relive each moment of our lives throughout the extent of eternity...I certainly spend hours reliving, at least in memory, those moments which have been perhaps pivotal or eye-opening in some way....and unfortunately those which have been possibly, in the scheme of things, unimportant, yet, haunting in some terminal way.
But if he is right, and if I am also right, in assuming that my sense of time will, for now, continue to move only forward...then today I choose to be pleasant, and to find the little moments within those days which seem unbearable that are lovely. Because if I am going to look back and remember all of my moments at some point or another...I'd really like to make sure that there are plenty of good ones.

Make a choice and then live with it...or change it.

Today I choose to find something good everyday.
...today I struggled through a test. I worked hard, and the struggle was good. Had I not worked hard, there wouldn't have been a fight.

Bis Bald...