The Write Thing

Would it be too irrational to say there are people who fear facts and people who fear feelings? Oh, I know…you would say that feelings are also facts, but that is where I think you go wrong. Feelings are not facts. Feelings change. They evolve, revolve, and sometimes even falter. They grow stronger, weaker…they fade. They confuse, dazzle, hurt, relieve…but all the time they are incapable of stasis.

Instead, facts do not change. They are. Intransitive verb, period. A chasm, a void, uncertainty towering because there is no exit. Facts are cruel and irreversible. Disease is a fact, love is not. Disease is a limitation with an outcome that eventually will be another fact, but love is not. Love is free as a concept, yet a prisoner of its cradle. It grows, and it fades, layers of its skin spread on a spurious surface, a requirement of blind faith for those who choose to indulge.

Yet I am more afraid of facts than emotions. You cannot fight facts, but you can fight emotions, and many people do. Or maybe you can fight facts, but most of the time the victory or defeat will be external to you, and already a given. Yet, many of us mistake emotions with facts and refuse to fight, expecting loss as a token…naive souls…loss is part of every game we play

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate

I am leaving all hope behind me, and here I am…crossing the door.

Before I continue with this post, I want to publicly thank for an award, my first, recently given to me. As stipulated in the conditions issued to the winners, I am now in the process of selecting ten blogs that I consider deserving of the same award I received. It is this phase of the aftermath to my honorable gift that has so far stopped me from acknowledging the award as I should have. In view of this, and despite my partial compliance with my share of the deal, I would like to express my gratefulness to my fellow blogger, Miss Fiamma, for including me as one of her choices, and publicly state that I will be paying my dues on this choice in full very soon, on the pages of this blog.

Having relieved myself of a self-conscious feeling of irresponsibility vis-à-vis a gift that I can only marvel at and be thankful for, I now proceed to post my entry of today.

This morning I spoke to my ex-girlfriend, for the first time since we parted ways two years ago, about the person I am deeply in love with. I said it finally, after a couple of months of pondering. As I spoke, part of me poured out in the retelling of my new feelings, while another side exercised a form of restraint, as in an Edith Wharton novel, perhaps in an effort to say just enough.

It is good to tell the truth, when the truth is palpable. It is better to tell the truth with the best possible words, those that do not hurt but communicate. And it is even better to live by the truth we know for a fact, because it may be there for a purpose.

Another cycle has in a way ended now. I have always said that lesbian ex-girlfriends never really become your friend but something else, undefined, oftentimes confused with some form of friendship. There is a certain affection, because something brought you together in the first place, and there is also the sea of differences that set you apart. And then, after a while, if you have remained close in some way, there is that brief instant, before you speak, when the truth still lingers behind the curtain, waiting to go out into the scene and feel itself in motion, as an actor does. You do not know what your audience’s reaction will be, but you certainly hope they will at least understand what you want to communicate. If the reaction is good, it means that they do.

Today my audience understood, and I am glad I told my truth.

Suppose you believe that there are stories that have shaped our souls in previous times. Suppose that we are a collection of those stories, and that the gaps in between or inside each one of those layers that make you are to be filled in some way. Of course, such a “willing suspension of disbelief” exercise requires you to consider time to be circular instead of linear, so that each time a new phase of your present life begins, you will return to one of those previous layers or lives, hopefully to make up for your past omissions.

Runes were originally an alphabet. In Norse mythology, runes have a divine origin. Their reading can therefore shed some light on the task or tasks at hand in your present life. Some will say there are 25 lives awarded to you. The higher you are on the scale, the more evolved your soul is. Still, there is a learning process to be made from what preceded the present you. The wheel turns, the dice is cast again, and you are given one more chance to learn. Whether you do it or not could make or break you.

I once was told that Borges’s cat was named Odin. Whether this is true or not, I cannot tell. Odin would stand for a sort of Wotan — Wagner lovers beware — representing the voice of wisdom. The final advice will be given by the higher god, and you might find interesting leads in his words.

Reading an alphabet and telling stories is a gift. If you can interpret the meanings, they might be fascinating. You can also stand skeptical to everything, and that would work as well. Nobody forces belief on anybody, but I like to think that one can be open to different possibilities of learning. Sometimes there are stories that come back to haunt us, and sometimes there are stories that come back to nurture us…which one will you be? I guess the latter, because there is a reunion, and there is a circular time that binds us, and there is — above all — you and I.