Reflective Silence

Standing by Ballyscanlon Lake the other evening in that moment between sunset and last light, the only sounds I could hear were my heart beating and lines of poetry.

W.B Yeats’, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, and John Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci were playing like a duet, bringing me more and more into that other world of hopes and dreams. The voice was my mother’s as she read these poems to me as a child and as she chimed in with me when I read them to her during her last months in 2009.

Poetry has a way of leaning into silence and drawing out the very essence of what it is to be alive.

 

So Much to Say that Goes Unspoken

Stan

This photograph that I took of Stan on Kilfarrasy Beach yesterday has reduced me to silence. It evokes so many thoughts, memories, feelings that it’s better to let it be.

Blogging shouldn’t always have to be about feeling compelled to say something other than ‘I’m here and want you with me in companionable silence.’ 

Sweet dreams, dear friends!

Crushing Crushes

I’ve written about crushes here before and over the last week the subject has reared its complex head again.

In short, I received a package from a guy who developed a crush on me way, way back when I was in my early teens. The large envelope contained a Valentine card and decades worth of Valentine quotes. There was also a very well-penned letter in which he explained the flip side of crushes and how it feels as if a piece of the heart has been stolen by the object of the crush.

I really, really thought that I had made it very clear over those years that I never, ever wanted to be part of the crush or see it develop into anything. Maybe I didn’t convey my thoughts well enough or maybe there was a deafness to them.

Okay, I went into silent mode then hoping that that would convey the fact that this was an entirely one-sided affair. Having read the letter, I feel now that there is a need to bring closure by acknowledging receipt of the package and stating absolutely that I want to give back the piece of heart that it I appear to have unwittingly stolen.

Why write about it all here? Well, I don’t have (nor do I want) an address to which to write privately. Also, I feel that this sorry episode highlights the extent to which personal blogs, especially, can be misinterpreted and need to be written with a clear focus on what they may dig up from the past.