2 - the delirium and ecstasy
Our instinct should not be to desire consolation over a loss but rather to develop a deep and painful curiosity to explore this loss completely, to experience the peculiarity, the singularity, and the effects of THIS loss in our life. Indeed, we should muster the kind of noble greed that would enrich our inner world with THIS loss and its significance and weight…
—Rainer Maria Rilke "On Loss, Dying and Death" in
The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke
~~~
Not until I left Maya and got myself to this La Jolla solitude, not until I began to travel the stacks again at the university library, not until I sat alone in a Landmark Theatre, enchanted and engaged by Jane Campion’s Bright Star could I have fathomed what had been lost.
Had never read Keats’s "Ode to a Nightingale" and when I first heard Ben Whishaw's reading as the credits rolled on Campion’s film I could not avoid Keats’s profound honesty and depth of feeling:
"Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow..."
Campion and Keats have brought me back to what’s most important, to that which compels, animates and vivifies. And once again I see the need to reject the mundane routines of household and the day-to-day frenzy of get and spend.
Listen to Keats in a letter to Fanny: “… God forbid we should what people call, settle – turn into a pond, a stagnant Lethe – a vile crescent, row or buildings. Better be imprudent moveables than prudent fixtures.”
Though late, this the winter of my life, it is clear—it’s time, once and for all, to condemn and call into question the presto-pronto pace of ignorance and belief. Time to not be lulled into the death-sleep, on the rails and habituated, where all is a venting and complaining, a near raging and forgetting.
Time to get reacquainted with insecurity; to once again choose romance, and joy, and unpredictability, and imprudence; to choose a way of life that’s dynamic and unsettling, time to focus on appreciating, revering and savoring the time we have left. Time to be fearless and courageous. Time to reject the closed off conclusions and fixed ways of those who would have us circumscribe our imaginations with god-sanctioned capitalism and avarice, the belief that “success” in earning a living the end-all and be-all.
Can we create an art of living where we let nothing slip by, where we focus on the moment we’re in, where success is measured not by dollars and cents but how we treat one another; an art of living where we don’t shy away from the immensity of our experience, of life as well as death, of sorrow as well as joy?
I want to say yes, I want to believe we can. But oh so difficult to acknowledge how deep this wound is, how horrible this break up has been. And, well, after something so simple as watching the final scene of Armfield’s Candy, where she and Dan reunite, where they hug and give each other a sweet and slow kiss, a remembrance of what had drew them together, the love they had in the midst of their suffering, and of course Dan loses it, understanding he must let her go, and he begins to cry,… I too am crying, my own tears of remembrance, such kisses luscious and exhilarating. And I’ve got my arms up, folded across my chest and I can’t stop, so much bubbling up to the surface, so brutal this loneliness, seemingly unendurable, and I find myself saying, “This has got to stop. I have to forget, I have to move on!”
Then, in a quieter moment, calm and composed, I ask: “What cowardice that would be, to not stand fearless in this delirium and ecstasy, to not marshal up the strength, to experience how heartbreaking, the loss of love can be?”
Rubbing up against the fear of my own death, seeing the compound pain of the last few years, this the most tragic and dramatic moment of my life. No, I don’t want to move on, I don’t want to forget. Let me wallow in it. Let me feel the worst of it. I will not turn away from where it leads.
Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 12:00PM 
Reader Comments (4)
I want to hold onto this thought and try to live this way..." better to be imprudent moveables than prudent fixtures". What a way to live.
It's 11:09 pm and it's been a difficult day. i re-read 2 - the delirium and ecstasy and I'm taken back to the moments that really matter. The subtleties in life that are so meaningful and the moments that are painful yet belong in the sum of our parts. Wonderful post MKB. I can't wait for the next one.
CJL... difficulties? There was a time that I didn't recognize the frequency of difficulties. Now, I see that they are integral. That if difficulties aren't in some way ever present then maybe something's wrong, that I'm not living to the full, not seeing clearly the breadth and depth of what's most animating and enlivening. Consider love, the incipient moments, and the struggles along the way. HOW FLIPPING MADDENING AND DIFFICULT! Difficulties remind us of how important our work is, how grand our beloved is, how stirring it is to savor and enjoy every challenging and creative moment of our lives.
This reminds me so much of a conversation we had before I moved to LA - fleeing from San Diego like I was running for my life. We must never settle for the mundane. We must live life to its and our fullest. We must live in the moment and soak it all in........
That conversation we had was key.
I thank you for that.