As I watch the world change in slow motion, much of it crumbling with aching naturalness, I try to make sense of it. I sometimes reach out to the farthest points, other times steep in anger. When I’m lucky, a melancholy washes over me, allowing me to feel joyously vulnerable. This journey we make leads to wisdom, while forcing us to remain childishly foolish, hopeful.
Regardless of how long we live, most of us are orphaned. It’s more than the loss of parents. It’s all the other losses. Gatherings of family and friends for holiday celebrations become parties of three or one. We travel to a city, remembering the uncle and aunt we visited there as a child and later a young adult, yet feel no connection to the kin they have left behind. The aunt who taught you to waltz with grace now walks with a cane and is rejected by her own children. A neighbor who has been an oak tree begins a decline, seemingly over night. All that we take for granted slips away, as we look around realizing that responsibility is our bed.
It does no good to apologize for all the things that went wrong or didn’t happen. And in spite of the efforts to set things right when they go askew, at best we stand dominoes on end, holding our breath.
I’ve been to the woods, the water, the desert. Each place I’ve remained cautious. Longing for epiphany, I forget that it comes only of its own choosing, when I’ve somehow made myself ready.
When things fall, they sometimes break, and some things can’t be mended. Broken hearts can be mended. Love does heal.
Desert Hearts
Harold Hollis
Normangee, Texas—July 4, 2005
Regardless of how long we live, most of us are orphaned. It’s more than the loss of parents. It’s all the other losses. Gatherings of family and friends for holiday celebrations become parties of three or one. We travel to a city, remembering the uncle and aunt we visited there as a child and later a young adult, yet feel no connection to the kin they have left behind. The aunt who taught you to waltz with grace now walks with a cane and is rejected by her own children. A neighbor who has been an oak tree begins a decline, seemingly over night. All that we take for granted slips away, as we look around realizing that responsibility is our bed.
It does no good to apologize for all the things that went wrong or didn’t happen. And in spite of the efforts to set things right when they go askew, at best we stand dominoes on end, holding our breath.
I’ve been to the woods, the water, the desert. Each place I’ve remained cautious. Longing for epiphany, I forget that it comes only of its own choosing, when I’ve somehow made myself ready.
When things fall, they sometimes break, and some things can’t be mended. Broken hearts can be mended. Love does heal.
Desert Hearts
Harold Hollis
Normangee, Texas—July 4, 2005
1 comment:
dear harold,
well, just finished reading all your post and enjoyed them so much. i hope you get a chance to go to my blog site, i am not a great writer but i think you will enjoy the visit to our farm, and i hope you take note of the little humble shotgun houses we are trying to restore.
i bought these with an inheritence from my mom, i really wanted to put her lifes money to good use, and i have always had an obsession with old houses.
we had then moved into the north part of them farm and you can just see glimpses of them from the road.
my favorite check out lady at the grocery store, amiddle aged lovely black women named tony inquired about them several months after they were moved in. "oh, is that where you live?" what are you going to do with those old houses, where did they come from, and can i come take a look at them"
she had alot of questions about them.
anyway, to make this long story short,....ooops, too late.
she did come see the houses, she did learn where they came from,(26 miles away in denison texas)......
and she lived in one of them when she was a little girl! shades of
o'henry, child!
hopefully,, she will bring her mom over some day to see them...and she promises to lend me a back and white photo of her and others when she was just a wee one in front of the very house. i hope to do some watercolor image of it and have it hanging on the wall one day.
hope you enjoy this little tidbit from my life..keep us posted on your blog, i will check in and check on you, hope to see you in october in roundtop.
love,
fran
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