Sunday, September 9, 2007

The Star To Every Wandering Bark.

I feel like I should be reading something about addicts acting right suddenly...like this is some kind of devastating phase that indicates that the addict is about to relapse, hugely, like just opening his veins with a penknife to shove the heroin in by the fistful. Who is this wonderful man, and what has he done with my crazy ass husband? We've had a solid week of real sanity, real productivity...

Wait, RD told me how to say it right, "We seem to have had a solid week of real sanity, real productivity."

But I am pointless and mushy and smitten and horny and healthy and happy, which means I haven't got a lot to say to you folks. Happy makes me quiet. Happy also makes me crazy. I'm not so comfortable in happy.

We were in the car yesterday listening to something awful on NPR, and this guy recited Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. That line, "the star to every wandering bark," made me feel something, some recognition I'd never felt before. I've had that sonnet memorized since the 12th grade, and sometimes, when I'm impatient or jogging or scared or tired or trying to clear my mind, I'll recite poetry that I've memorized...so I've turned this poem all around in my head, again and again, for years. But that "star to every wandering bark" grabbed me in a new way, and made me think of my own too-recently tumultuous life...and the years preceding...and all the time present and time past, and how in all the time eternally tumbling to now, one thing has always been true, always ahead of me, always important. The ebbs and flows have always pushed me, meaningfully, towards the place where I am, and that's really beautiful.

3 comments:

Recovery Discovery (R) said...

I can't take the credit for "seems." I got it from Married to an Addict.

Mary P Jones (MPJ) said...

That's what I love about Shakespeare, about great art: you come back to it again and again and each time you find something new and each time it helps you find your place in the world and each time it makes your life richer and more beautiful.

I once (before I had kids, when I had endless time on my hands) embroidered that whole sonnet and had it framed for a friend's wedding. It was a beautiful thing to embroider each letter, to linger over it, to savor it. Maybe I should embroider the collected works of T.S. Eliot someday or something. Then maybe I'll reach some sort of state of divine bliss or enlightenment...

Wayward Son said...

I share your confusion with states of happiness. We must work on this for it just should not be!