Dark winter and an empty space

I know this blog has been a bit of an empty cavern for the past three plus months, and I apologize to the loyal few who actually take the time to see what banalities I like to throw up here from time to time. I’ve been neglectful of this site before, but not to this degree. The truth is, this past winter has been a tough one for me, personally. No, there haven’t been any life or death tragedies, but in the context of what makes this particular spirit shimmer and shine, it has been a somber and sober stretch of time, indeed.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;
- Alexander Pope

If I had the option granted those players from the sublime film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” I would seriously consider taking it. Wiping my brain clean of those unwanted, poisonous memories; very tempting indeed. Unfortunately, this is the real world in which I live, and it was in numbing heartbreak that I tried to pass these past few months. While walking with Jamie one day, he was overcome with sentimentality and proclaimed winter to be a fantastic season, for the pure reason that it foretold the coming of spring. At dinner with Zoe one night soon thereafter, she went so far as to declare winter the best season of them all, not for what followed it for what is is in and of itself. “Everything is clean, fresh, cold and new,” she said. And yet I still wait for the newness to come, for the fresh start and the wiping away of all ugliness.

I am still waiting.

Winter here in Shanghai is harsh and bitter and lonely. One of the big plants that had been sitting next to my TV was in danger of being over-watered, so I dragged it outside to let it dry off and find itself. Within a matter of days, its leaves started to crumple, and now it sits on my balcony, nothing more than a lifeless trunk that watched over this city as it draped itself in a dirty, gray snow. I was not too much different indoors, huddled under blankets too thin and despondency too sticky to feel any warmth in my limbs. How strange it was to feel a throbbing wish to go backwards instead of forwards?

“How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
- William Shakespeare, Othello

Winter is nearing its end however, and sadness has become less something that is consuming and more something that I have learned to live with. After wrestling with the question of whether or not people can fundamentally change the ugly parts of themselves, I have decided to focus less on others and more on changing myself. Introspection totally sucks; it’s hard and stings and never completes itself. Sometimes, the way we look to ourselves in the mirror vary on the lighting, the angle, and what you really want to see. Throughout the coldest months, I’ve stared and stared and wondered if the aching that I felt was a function of the circumstances that happened upon me, or if they were a greater byproduct of who I was as a person. I still don’t have an answer, but I’m not going to wait for it to come. It’s time to ignore the ugliness and think about the pure, good things that I know exist throughout this individual spirit.

What kind of person do I want to be? The kind that lies down and curls up, or the kind that pushes off the ground and looks for the sunlit corner?

“We might be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.”
- Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia

I still see smiles, I still hear laughter, I still can feel warm together lying on the couch, time suspended for just a whisper. There is no spotless mind to be had, no pounding waves to wash the sweet and tearful away. But there is tomorrow, there is hope, and there is spring, which is the best season of all. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Oh, and that I will find comfort again, because even in darkness there is no permanence.