Note from Donaya: I'm considering instead of having a guest blogger, having a guest storyteller, because I know many wonderful talented people who deserve a slice of spotlight themselves. My father, who wishes to be addressed as Veridad Haymond, has only ever written two or three creative pieces. This is by far the best and is in fact one of my favorite short stories in the world.
TO GET TO THE OTHER…SIDE
Life and Death in a Pastoral Setting
Why?
Why now? Why me?
As well ask why breathe? Why love? Why greet the morning?
Sun brightness, warmth on body, bustling society, the texture and crunch of sustenance. These are the joys of being.
But always the pull toward that other….
In youth I followed as siblings led, sometimes fleeing, sometimes reaching toward that other…
I watched in fright, in awe, in envy as the great ones crossed over, leaving only their husks behind, rustling in the afterbreeze.
I saw others taken before their time, escorted away by servants without ever tasting that other…
The Change Master is capricious, coming sometimes straight on, swerving sometimes suddenly to left, to right. A spice of uncertainty is thus added to the ritual.
Thrice now have I danced the dance, once so closely I reaped the whirlwind and my foot was lamed.
I have accepted the homage due one touched by the Master, but that lingering touch only hungers me for the fullness of that other…
When the connection is not clear, when the pull is not present, I hesitate, then continue along the parallel, the safe unthreatening limited parallel of this state. Not for now the blessed perpendicular….
But today I feel a gleam. A call, a tug. There awaits that other… And today is my day.
The Change Master approaches. Now for the dance of death.
Of death, said I? But why not of life? To wake from this pleasant but inchoate dream state, to move onward, to move beyond…
To live.
I begin to run, stretching shoulders to limber my pace, to move my crippled limb along.
The Master draws near, nearer.
Now is my moment. Now the connection is made. Now comes the pull toward that other…
As the Master enters my peripheral vision, I execute, again, that perpendicular that measures, that states our highest being.
Between? Beyond? I control the urge to fly this encounter, to flee from the new knowing.
Contact.
Explosion.
Light…
That’s why.
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The preceding meditation was inspired by many riding hours and multitudes of chickens on the rural roads of Laos. In particular, by chickens that would run alongside the road in safety and then suddenly dart in front of our vehicle, seeming to deliberately place themselves in mortal peril. This suggested to me a metaphysical answer to the immortal chicken/road riddle.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Desire for Understanding
Among the most stereotypical of adolescent complaints is "Nobody understands me!"
On one level this is simply whining, as the amount of empathy people can have for each other, especially parents for their children, is a great deal more than the moody and frustrated are willing to admit. The human race is such a vast network of dreams and fears repeated billions upon billions of times that someone has been through something very much like your situation before.
On another level, though, there is the sad truth that as we have become a more complexly cognitive species, our ability to communicate has not kept up with our ability to think. Lacking mind-melds or some other sci-fi/fantasy ability (or at least one that has stood up to rigorous testing), we make do with the senses and the arts.
I find nothing more exquisite in life than conveying something to someone else, in all the ways it can be done - the quirk of an eyebrow, a snatch of song, a drawing, a painting, a sculpture, a dance, gentle pressure on the hand, a way of walking, alteration of behavior, the infinite majesty and versatility of words, the tone of a voice, an emoticon, the timed lack-of-speech in between each sound that bears all the meaning of the sounds themselves - but there is still an essential febrility in these things. We are waving flags at each other on a foggy night. Our consolation is making the flags bright as possible.
No matter how well I write, the stories are not in your head the way they are in mine. But oh, I am more grateful every day that they can be in your head in some form at all.
On one level this is simply whining, as the amount of empathy people can have for each other, especially parents for their children, is a great deal more than the moody and frustrated are willing to admit. The human race is such a vast network of dreams and fears repeated billions upon billions of times that someone has been through something very much like your situation before.
On another level, though, there is the sad truth that as we have become a more complexly cognitive species, our ability to communicate has not kept up with our ability to think. Lacking mind-melds or some other sci-fi/fantasy ability (or at least one that has stood up to rigorous testing), we make do with the senses and the arts.
I find nothing more exquisite in life than conveying something to someone else, in all the ways it can be done - the quirk of an eyebrow, a snatch of song, a drawing, a painting, a sculpture, a dance, gentle pressure on the hand, a way of walking, alteration of behavior, the infinite majesty and versatility of words, the tone of a voice, an emoticon, the timed lack-of-speech in between each sound that bears all the meaning of the sounds themselves - but there is still an essential febrility in these things. We are waving flags at each other on a foggy night. Our consolation is making the flags bright as possible.
No matter how well I write, the stories are not in your head the way they are in mine. But oh, I am more grateful every day that they can be in your head in some form at all.
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