Saturday, September 24, 2011

slow suicide's no way to go

A routine morning at the family leads to finding out that one relative has a week to live, that another one much closer is veering closer and closer to a total collapse and there's nothing any of us can do. I don't know what to say, and leave, not knowing what to do.

But it's so beautiful out, and how many more days like this will there be, so I go to the nature preserve that's open twice a year, take my camera and shoot pictures of leaves and trees, of reeds taller than me, of spiderwebs and deadwood, basking in the sun filtering through the green and the first red colors of fall, having awkward small talk with senior citizen birdwatchers, walking ahead so I can be alone with God and immerse myself in the sound of crickets and cicadas.

I want more green and flowers, but the botanical garden has some big event so I wander through the art museum looking at photos of the midwest and its broken dreams, ancient sculptures from Persia and Greece and Byzantium, the bright colors of oil paintings. I know that this is only temporary solace, but it is solace nonetheless.

I need sleep, need so many intangible things and wish for things that will never happen in this all too short life. I don't know what to say, what to do to make anything better. I don't know if any of us really does.

2 comments:

Randal Graves said...

None of us do know, doesn't always keep us from trying, I guess. Whether that means we're smart or stupid, altruistic or selfish, who knows that, too.

Word verification: whislife. Does seem like a whisper sometimes, can barely hear it, but impossible to let it fall back into the din.

Anonymous said...

hard sometimes to sort out the puzzles to be solved from the mysteries to just be lived thru, harder yet to accept that some things are beyond us(esp. beyond our fixing), nature and museums seem like good reminders of the scale of things.