TWO HAIKU ATTACHED BY PETIOLE

Glittering golden
pages on the poplar tree
turning in the breeze.

-

Then and now one falls
floating, folding through the sky:
a story's end in Autumn.


~ 11/18/05


I wrote this at the Free Speech Movement Cafe. Writing a 12-15 page research paper on rape as a form of violence is heavy stuff--going outside on the terrace and looking at the poplar on the edge of Memorial Glade did wonders for clearing my mind.

Second Lesson

[ Continued ]

2) Let the moment fill you and run its course.

Perhaps it is not we who live through moments: perhaps the moments live through us. That being said, we should allow each moment to live as fully as we would like ourselves to live. This ties in nicely with the charge that we experience our emotions fully.

After the break-up, I felt I should repress myself and bottle up emotions. Sure, I allowed myself to bitch and moan about S. to my friends, but I could not bring myself to realistically tell her about what I was going through. I did send e-mails that vacillated between love and hate, and wrote LiveJournal entries that bordered on insane, but I did not know which path to take: noise or silence, anger or sadness, sadness or acceptance...

I realized, even then, that this was a moment I had to experience fully. It would take its course, and being young I did not know how exactly to navigate that course but only knew that I would go down it somehow. And, according to Tuesdays, it would be a matter of saying "this is confusion following a serious break-up" and detaching myself from it--but only after accepting its validity, its own claim to life, as an individual and wonderful moment.

And... after recognizing a specific feeling as pride, I am able to detach myself from it. It is then--hopefully--easier to forgive.

But I will surely relapse. Feel sorry for myself, be lonely, feel hurt, be nostalgic. But I know that I will experience these things, and I will be able to rise above them--when their moments have lived.