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3.22.2005

Everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long stemmed rose.

If you were to ask someone about me, they may tell you that I am a happy person. This is generally true. However, happiness is a manufactured state. Being happy is an activity, it is not something that befalls a person just for being alive. It is work.

My thoughts today turn to happiness because it is spring. The cold shoulders of winter are no longer clenched near the ears, but are loose and free. The sun touches them lightly, promisingly. The sky is a bridesmaid's blue, a thin wrist over which recherche tendrils of cloud are lightly dragged. Really just memories of clouds. In spring, people become markedly happier. They look forward to the days. As do I. However, a part of me is sad as well.
It seems as though time continues to pass and it becomes harder to be happy. I try to be grateful for everything that I have, but sometimes I wonder how long a person can chase their shadow towards the horizon knowing they will never reach it. Is it possible that such a happy person can feel melancholy while the world becomes so optimistic? For what I feel I want never seems to be, and I fear it may be my own fault.

On that note, I turn to poetess and the 1996 Polish Nobel prize winner, Wislawa Szymborska.


AMONG THE MULTITUDES

I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.

I could have different
ancestors, after all.
I could have fluttered
from another nest
or crawled bescaled
from another tree.

Nature's wardrobe
holds a fair
supply of costumes:
Spider, seagull, fieldmouse.
each fits perfectly right off
and is dutifully worn
into shreds.

I didn't get a choice either,
but I can't complain.
I could have been someone
much less separate.
someone from an anthill, shoal, or buzzing swarm,
an inch of landscape ruffled by the wind.

Someone much less fortunate,
bred for my fur
or Christmas dinner,
something swimming under a square of glass.

A tree rooted to the ground
as the fire draws near.

A grass blade trampled by a stampede
of incomprehensible events.

A shady type whose darkness
dazzled some.

What if I'd prompted only fear,
Loathing,
or pity?

If I'd been born
in the wrong tribe
with all roads closed before me?

Fate has been kind
to me thus far.

I might never have been given
the memory of happy moments

My yen for comparison
might have been taken away.

I might have been myself minus amazement,
that is,
someone completely different.


My parent's backyard in Maine last weekend.

link * Miss Marisol posted at 12:48 PM * posted by Miss Marisol @ 12:48 PM   |