Samain and the Summer’s End Moon
Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Blue Fin Sushi. The earrings. Driving back up the hill, into the mountains. Those who would alter time. More light in the morning. The gentle curve of Black Mountain against a blue-white Colorado Sky. Sally. Jews. My friends. My family. Learning to live with yet more dissonance. Quest Diagnostics. Slow on this one. A good workout yesterday. Yetzer hara: oh, never mind. Let’s rest. Yetzer hatov: It’s worth it. No news yet on my test.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: A stable and happy Ruth
One brief shining: A blonde-bleached Japanese young woman with elaborate tattoos asked me where I wanted to sit, no not out in the middle, here along the side, yes that will be good, Blue Fin Sushi logo under layers of polyurethane, put my flannel overshirt back on, and slid onto the naugahyde, a deep blue, here comes Ruth, I got up and hugged her so happy to see her smiling, bedecked in rings and necklaces, bracelets, and ear jewelry, her hair its actual brown for now.
In a way Ruth is like the prodigal son. She leaves the world of happiness and teenage life behind on occasion, leaves the rest of us behind while she struggles with what her mind visits upon her. But when she comes home I want to slaughter the fatted calf, bring up the best grains, fruits and vegetables, lay them all before her. Hoping as the father in the New Testament undoubtedly did that she will stay with us this time.
Last night she spoke of college applications, classes in her senior year, her friends, her Grandma Barb whom she helped get a new phone, buying a new car. She pointed out all the pieces of jewelry she wore that belonged to Kate. Rings. Necklaces. Bracelets. I gave her the earrings I found on the New York Review of Books shop. They featured Walt Whitman quotes. One read: Resist much. The other: Obey little. Kate and I, and at his best, Jon followed these very American ideals.
A fine and hopeful meal. So, so good to see her. Dazzle Jazz next time.
An odd adjustment to the slow pace of the protein electrophoresis. As the tabs on the various tests have shown Test in Progress, I’ve come to a place of peace about it all. As I would anyway, I’m living my life. CBE Friday night for Albert’s yahrzeit. Dinner with Ruth last night. Going to Irv and Joan’s renaissance singers performance at 3 pm today. Reading. Doing the laundry. Writing. Cooking.
In this process I rediscovered the truth of it all. Alive now and in each moment. I can only live today, right now. And, I am. So no need to be Dante: Near the end of this our mortal life (but not, I hope, too near) I have already walked in the gloomy forest and come out the other side, no longer caught there far from the straight path, the ancientrail that leads from birth to the grave.
How first I enter’d it I scarce can say,
Such sleepy dullness in that instant weigh’d
My senses down, when the true path I left, Canto 1, Inferno
Well, I can now say how first I entered it. My mother’s death pushed me down toward Dante’s inferno at too young an age, not midlife, but at seventeen, Ruth’s age as it happens. I wandered in that pit for so many years, making myself an enemy of myself, closing off the world, pushing others away. But with the help of Jung and John Desteian I found my way out. Long ago. I can still revisit the place on occasion, as I did on Friday, but I know the way out. Back to the light and to this life.
