... with this book. When I passed it on my bookshelf recently I pulled it down to re-read. I wished I hadn't.
What I had once been enthralled with had lost its allure. I found it tedious, tenuous and boring. I re-read the book to the end hoping to find a spark, any spark of the potency that it had held for me all that time ago. I was disappointed.
So then I got to thinking about how this could be. How something I was once besotted by could now be so empty and meaningless. I am glad I persevered with the read because I have learned that the way I felt as a woman with three young children plus a life of domestic responsibilities is so different to the way I feel now.
Then I was heavy, weighed down and I wanted to feel light...to escape the repetitiveness and drudgery of my days.
Now I have grown roots into the earth and feel grounded, connected - heavy - but like the gum tree across my river I am floating in the summer sky, moving with the breeze, feeling the sun and the rain - I am light, and I can draw up from the great roots...
Words from Robert Bly
I feel like I am drifting with no solid ground underneath my feet..
ReplyDeletegetting to know my new old me takes time..so I float along and use my life skills to get through...I like life but also don't like it at times..I have realized that it is not all smell of roses.
Mona: How right you are - sometimes it stinks! But you can learn to look out for the roses and not step in the sh**. Then again sometimes you just don't see it coming. But sh** and roses are equally a part of life.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that puzzled me when I was in my thirties was this: how could people in their sixties, seventies, and eighties be so happy? I mean, come on. "Don't they know they're about to die?" I thought to myself.
ReplyDeleteI thought that in my autumn years I'd have the wit be depressed by my immanent demise. How wrong I was. At 57, I feel happier than ever. This reminds me of a book by Forrest Church called Love and Death that I read recently. Maybe I'll do a post. Thanks, Delwyn.
Dan: Exactly, Its the 'living' of it that becomes essential, squeezing all the juice out of each day...And maybe contentment has something to do with maturity - like you I am the happiest I have ever been...
ReplyDeleteDelwyn - I am glad that you are happy...that makes me happy :) and I do believe I grow happier as I grow older, and that is comforting. and now you have me curious... what would I think of "the unbearable lightness" now??
ReplyDeleteHi Val: maybe you will have to read it again too...so good to have you as a travelling companion
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