It’s taken me a while, but, I have come to the logical conclusion that (in many contexts) people leave. Whether it is by choice, for work or sadly, even in passing away; people leave. I left. I spread my wings flew the cage, just before having them clipped again.
Amongst the ‘gifts’ I was given, were the gifts of roots and wings; roots to come home to and wings to fly away. I had spent so much time trying to spread my clipped wings that I discovered I missed my roots.
The melancholy hue of lavender, frankincense and myrrh haunt like a ghost. A shadow would be a better way of describing it; ghosts can leave too but shadows cannot, only if you turn the light off. Songs in minor keys tug at my insides like a kite in a gale.
Grief, hurt sadness and loss: emotions that to some extent everyone feels. My father always said:
“Anger is an emotion that no man should ever feel”.
I disagree. Every man should feel passionately about something; good or bad. Uncertainty; there is an emotion that no man should ever feel. Wishful thinking.
As the afternoon segues into evening, the vanilla caresses the air as the solitary flame provides a multitude of offerings: light, warmth, hope, trust.
It’s taken me a while, but I am now enamoured with silence. It is a diegesis that no Foley could reproduce. The fridge: whinnying into silence. The clock: a metronomic heartbeat from the kitchen. A flock of gulls squawk outside. It is weird, I heard the couple upstairs the other morning, the gulls soon after. Their sounds superimposed onto each other. Seagulls and eroticism should never be discussed in the same sentence; how Murakami of me.
The phone rings suddenly, like an interrupted cadence; its only resolution is to answer. I could let it ring out but that awkward silence afterward stings my ears; like a pin dropping or worse, tinnitus. Mum asking how my day was. It is the one voice I treasure hearing. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of Saint-Saen’s The Swan; elegant, breath-taking, patient, delicate. The cello ‘breathing’ with a sense of life and timelessness. Underneath, a tale of personal strength, courage, loss and gain. The conversation, like the cello, I don’t want it to end.
The conversation is full of our little nuances, secrets and colloquialisms that only the two of us understand: I can tell other people are in the room with her, but we still manage to ask and answer all the questions and gossip in spite of their presence. She gets me…
My Dad; Schubert Impromptus; they were the first thing that came to mind. Soulful, personal and should be heard one to one. There is a lot to be gotten; solace, truth, unconditional love, heroism… now go and listen to the Impromptus!!
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