Brrrr

10:51:34 PM      trackback [] 

Seasons and cycles

Autumn Leaves

(french lyrics by jacques prévert,

English lyrics by johnny mercer,

Music by joseph kosma)

The falling leaves drift by the window

The autumn leaves of red and gold

I see your lips, the summer kisses

The sun-burned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long

And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song

But I miss you most of all my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall

C’est une chanson, qui nous ressemble

Toi tu m’aimais et je t’aimais

Nous vivions tous, les deux ensemble

Toi que m’aimais moi qui t’aimais

Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment

Tout doucement sans faire de bruit

Et la mer efface sur le sable les pas des amants désunis

---

It occurred to me recently that my life has taken on the quality of the movie “Groundhog Day.” I am drawn over and over again to be in a committed relationship. And yet I find myself continually in this cycle: endless dating, then the rare occasion of meeting someone my heart responds to, followed by an initial romance, which suddenly evaporates, or if it gets past that it still never quite “takes” and is ended, then back to a long stretch of nothing and then a new round of blind dates and it begins again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this. According to my astrologer, I’ve been trying to figure this out for lifetimes. So you can imagine how tiresome it’s become. This is the lifetime, she says, when I will finally learn this lesson of relationship. Here I am at midlife. It’s 6AM and the radio’s playing that damn song again, “I Got You Babe.”

It’s kinda funny, now that I think of it. Having finally had a decent night’s sleep (thanks to the passionflower and valerian root combo I took around midnight), I can look at this Groundhog Day idea as amusing. That’s one of the innumerable responses I’ve had to my situation. Like Bill Murray’s character in the movie, I’ve had the bewilderment, despair, anger, petulance, trying to “escape” my apparent fate through any number of means, and endlessly trying to “fix” it and “fix” myself. I’ve had plenty of well-intentioned advice from “it happens when you’re not looking” to “you need to go out more and meet people,” from “who needs men” to “you weren’t patient enough” to “he’s just not that into you” and "you can do better." The best support involves sheer sympathy (thanks Martha) and the offer of tea and a hug (thanks Susan).

But this Groundhog Day idea is interesting, and powerful. Every major religion seems to have claimed the movie as theirs, but it does seem to have a particular affinity to Buddhism. I have no idea what the particular lesson for me is, I only know I have to keep on keeping on, as the Zen Mama recently said in her wonderful essay on mazes, “ultimately you can't ‘think’ your way to the finish line.” She quotes Zen Master Seung Sahn’s advice: "Only go straight, don't know!" That I can say with certainty: Don’t know.

12:02:55 PM      trackback []