A Wink and a Nod

I was watching the sunset today, which happened to be full of beautiful pink shafts of light, and I was suddenly reminded of a phrase from The Odyssey that my professors continually pointed out to us. These wise and learned men reminded us often of the frequency with which Homer invoked the image of "rosy-fingered dawn," a description very nearly fitting of the sight I beheld this evening (of course, in this case the phrase would more correctly be "rosy-fingered dusk"). I always found it odd that my Great Texts professors focused so intently on this one phrase. Certainly it is a precise and lovely image; we have all watched fingers of light spread across the sky in the early morning. But of all the spellbinding images in Homer's epic, this one snippet of description is by no means exemplary.

Suddenly, as I watched the sun sink below the horizon, I realized the purpose behind this fixation. The phrase "rosy-fingered dawn" is well known, for reasons that escape me, as belonging to The Odyssey in some vital, highly significant way. It is a signpost, a convenient password by which one may indicate one's familiarity with this foundational text of Western culture. Employing this phrase in intellectual conversation in a sort of merit badge, an expression of the speaker's literary credentials. Or, used another way, it serves as a test whereby one might feel out the learnedness of his interlocutors. 

I find such posturing terribly pretentious, but I certainly cannot claim innocence. I am well aware that I often drop tidy quotes from literature of note in everyday conversation, just to see if anyone picks up on the allusion. I do not enjoy feeling out of my intellectual depth, and so I attempt to shore up my fragile superiority by simultaneously proving my extensive literacy, vast powers of recall, and razor wit. Such petty linguistic tricks are surely small crimes in the grand scheme, but these subtleties are the guise beneath which I obscure the corners of my soul thus far resistant to interrogation and improvement. 

I am a frail, whimpering wretch in my fashion, but I pleased to find I am less so every day.

How Do You Catch a Cloud and Pin It Down?

You'll know it when you feel it? What kind of new age, sentimental hogwash is that? If you've never been in love, how can you be expected to tell the real deal from just some passing fancy or indigestion? And how can you ever know, with any degree of certainty, that your love is genuine? "Ah," quoth the sages, in all their whimsical sagacity, "but you must only believe! You'll know it when the time comes!"

I never bought into the idea that love is some universal, inherent force just waiting to be discovered by each of us when the planets align and we stumble into blissful romance. Then again, I've never been accused of undue sentimentality. My adolescence, most of which I spent single, was a time of great maturation in many areas, especially in terms of my views on interpersonal relationships of manifold kinds. Being in a romantic relationship for the past 16 months or so has put my deeply cherished opinions to the test, and thus far I have amended my philosophy only slightly. I am pleased to find that what I expected and desired out of love has been granted me.

The attentive reader has no doubt suffered a bout of bewildered head-scratching at this last claim, and justly so. How does one who questions the quantifiability of love assert that he has found it? Though superficially paradoxical, the resolution of this conundrum lies in the proper definition of terms. To settle my roving and restless mind, I needed only to focus on love as a verb, not a noun. Certainly there is love (noun) in the world, but only because individuals consciously and routinely choose to love (verb) one another. Love is a process, an assertive act of the will. It is neither an arbitrary accident nor a biochemical magnetic pull. Love exists at the mercy of a perpetual cost/benefit analysis: does the other's joy pay dividends exceeding my numerous and inevitable sacrifices? Love is also a zero-sum game; nothing is gained except that which is contributed by one or both parties. Love must be cared for a maintained religiously, fed, clothed, and housed with tenderness and vigilance. The least inattention can introduce mildew and festering rot that will prove love's undoing. This process sounds arduous, frightening, and uncertain only because it is.

However, the joys of love are rare fruits that grow on no other vine. Love is uniquely and powerfully edifying, life-giving, beautiful, and warm. The toil and pain are washed away in each simple moment of contentment, from a lazy afternoon spent together to the first brush of a lover's hand. How do I know I've found love? Because the divine, incomparable She decides each day to renew her commitment to me, and I return her commitment in kind. And for this I am blessed beyond measure.

Take Heart, For You Are Not Alone

There are times when a certain line from a song, poem, play, etc., seems to describe my present circumstances to the tee. I have a highly selective memory, and the phrases that stick with me are often not the most eloquent or well-constructed but simply those that paint a precise picture of a sentiment I too have experienced. Right now, the second verse of Robert Earl Keen's "The Coming Home of the Son and Brother" (actually written by J. D. Hutchison) is resonating with me:

Time has slipped away
I don’t know if I can play another tune
They want me to build single handed
A road up to the moon
They only pay me nickels and dimes
In a game that I can never win
So it’s the coming home
Of the son and brother again

I never know if I can "play another tune." Each new challenge seems more daunting than the last. I am, however, determined to endure.

The Web, She Is So Tangled

I discovered today that my unique blend of arrogance and self-doubt allows me to delight in discovering flaws and imperfections in my talents, abilities, and personality. I find these little foibles handy when my ego needs deflating.

See? I'm Not Always Morbid and Filled With Angst.

I love this place. I love the people whose skill tacitly compels me to improve. I love my art, my craft. I'm not sure I'm any good at it. I don't really care. I'm never more exuberant than when I get it right. I'm never more ashamed than when I am presenting work I know to be sub-par. I have seen moments of beauty that continue to inspire me years after I experience them. It is a gut-wrenching, light-bringing, soul-crushing, heart-mending, eye-opening endeavor.

And I love it.

At Sixes and Sevens

I am a walking contradiction, a hodgepodge of hobbies and interests, an intersection of sensibilities and aesthetics. I refuse to be confined to a genre, to be labeled, to be pigeonholed. Perhaps I am complex because I am restless, or inconstant, or easily distracted. Hopefully I am simply astounded by the beauty waiting to be uncovered in the diverse corners of human potential.

Should we take Jerry Jeff's advice and taste every single grape on the vine? I'm not a hedonist, but I do see great value in a diversity of experience and the willingness to venture beyond the pale.

Is all that can be known worth knowing? My life is a series of experiments designed to settle the issue once and for all.

Oooo, a Metamorphosis! Kafka and Ovid Would Be So Proud!

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I know myself too well to believe that the prospect of another year of life will serve as sufficient encouragement to achieve my life goals. If I'm going to change, I know full well it must be motivated by dissatisfaction with my circumstances as manifested in a single, particularly provocative event or series of events. However, in the past few months I have decided that certain promises I have made to myself must finally be fulfilled. To wit: I asked for and received an accordion for Christmas and have so far been quite diligent about practicing daily. I started an intense cardio program five times a week that I plan to continue the rest of the semester. I am also shining a painful but life-giving light on the cruel, selfish places in my soul and excising them, slowly but surely. How much pride and satisfaction it has given me to improve myself mind, body, and soul in significant, quantifiable ways!

Coincidentally, the New Year just rolled around, so I suppose those among you who wish to do so may consider these self-improvement initiatives New Year's resolutions. I see them more as long-overdue payment on post-dated checks transferring funds from a heretofore insufficient fund of inspiration and discipline into a once-dwindling reserve of recent personal change for the better. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

I remembered today how much it bugs me when people use two exclamation marks at the end of a sentence. For some reason I feel the only reasonable options are a) one b) three or c) a ludicrous amount, each indicating a successively higher degree of emphasis. An example would be as follows:

• We're having a baby! (Usual case; typical degree of excitement)
• We're having a baby!!! (A successful result of months of fertility treatments)
• WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Tweet posted by the last surviving human couple in a post-apocalyptic future)

Yet another unreasonable pet peeve of mine, I suppose.

Mixed Messages

Today I had lunch with my 90-year-old grandmother at her assisted living home and took the winding drive through the country to visit Camp Champions. These two experiences, coming one after the other as they did, combined to produce a confusing philosophical haze that has settled on me all afternoon and evening. I have been faced with my own mortality and gripped with an intense fear of mental degradation while simultaneously celebrating my own vitality and relishing the peculiar joie de vivre that washes over me from time to time when I'm especially content with where I am and where I'm headed. At times like these I am indecisive, hesitant, perhaps tortured. Speaking generally, I don't know whether to lament that which has been lost or to exalt the wonders that are surely to come. I feel confident that each response is appropriate for different periods of our lives (The Birds and Ecclesiastes would agree). The trouble comes when one feels the urge to participate in both.