Maybe it’s better to have loved and lost but, in truth, it’s always both. After all, what is a greeting but a goodbye on credit? Any first encounter a mere prelude to the ultimate parting.
Good day, fellow wanderers! I’m just realizing how (in)appropriate this post will be for the upcoming annual commemoration of some guy’s martyrdom/ murder. Valentine’s Day is weird.
“High Interest”, Sept. 8, 2022)
Love may best compare
To deceptively innocuous loan
Gilded comfort up-front
But ineradicably mandating
Compulsory restitution
Settlements deferred an age
Still ultimately insists
Long outstanding balance
For one or countless others
A searing debt will be paid
Including disturbingly barbarous arrears
However, unlike wilted currency
Or biological dissolution
Of distinctly ephemeral favours
The memories of devotion
Irreparably tarnished and staggeringly immaculate
Continue on, intrinsic within us
Just as we some distant day
Live on ourselves, within the rest.
SO, let’s talk. I’m sure a vast proportion of you disagree with me. At least for the first half anyway. And that’s ok. In fact, that’s great! I don’t want anyone to agree. Those who do understand why and those who don’t likely do as well.
Also, is the ending annoyingly cliché? Yes. But here’s the thing, it’s true and I love it. Within the rest, the cessation of music, the echo of the great song. Within the rest, we are at peace and rest eternally. Within the rest, continuing metaphorically and literally within everyone and thing. Call it “atomic poetry”. We are the dust of stars and are inevitably fated to return. As clichés go this one possesses great beauty.
We welcome people into our hearts, make space for them and when they are gone it’s within that same space in which they remain. For good or ill. A warming glow or sinking anchor. To love is to know great joy but eventual sorrow. Saying that, while eventually the sadness begins to fade, love at least has a chance to escape untarnished. Perhaps not, it may be forever serrated with a twinge of loss, regret’s shadow or the empty scorching pains first shared and then so very alone. But remain it does. A stent or blockage, perception dependant. Maybe it’s better to have loved and lost, but in truth, it’s always both.
That was fun, eh? I think pragmatically the takeaway here is, love your people. Every day. Don’t let stupid minor complexities prevent you from optimizing the time remaining with your companions or their time remaining with you. Never squander what seems trivial but may prove monumental. Live.
-Alex Blaikie
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Dread Poets Sobriety 
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