All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.
FARTHER
Words and Music by Jim Robbins
Once we walked on many paths
and found the pounding stones,
and we knew that each path
goes farther back into the past
than we could ever hope to go.
Once we held each other close
and waited out the storm.
When we looked into each other's eyes
we knew that they were deeper
than we could ever hope to plunge.
Once we climbed higher
than we had ever hoped to go,
but the cliffs all around us
showed that we could not hope
to ever go any higher.
Now you've left, and I wonder
if you went farther
than I could ever hope to go,
or if you just could go no farther.
FARTHER
My wife left me after thirty years of marriage to rekindle an adolescent romance with a man she had known over four decades ago. When they were teenagers, their relationship had ended when he fled to Canada to dodge the draft (which I find laudable since I have always believed that the Vietnam War was an abomination). He is an artist who paints murals of undersea and forest environments. (Since I am also an artist, I can appreciate his work.) He lives in Florida and has a sister in North Carolina. That’s all I know about him.
After four decades, my wife found him on Facebook at a time when she was reconnecting with a lot of old high school friends. After I discovered his name on her phone, I went to his website, which shows some of his murals, and I discovered that my wife three years before had lavishly praised his work.
Nowadays, I usually feel that I'm over the break up, but I confess I still don't totally understand it. My wife loves her children and grandchildren, all of whom live in California, so pulling up roots and moving to Florida was a dramatic move for her. My wife was an extremely responsible person, but she had reached retirement age and was ready to begin a new phase of her life.
I have sometimes wondered if my wife was fleeing from disease and death since her mother was ill and her father died at a time when I also appeared to be going down the tubes due to a chronic illness. I don't blame her, especially since, at the time, due to my condition, I might have experienced a stroke that could have left me a vegetable—if it didn't kill me. In truth, since I was sure at that point that I was dying, part of me just wanted her to let go of our relationship and have a good life. Part of me didn't want her to have to stick around to experience my demise.
After she left, I did much physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual work; I have completely recovered from my illness, and I have started a new phase of my life as well. Nevertheless, even without any blame, the end of our thirty year relationship still remains perplexing, for my heart at least....
(NOTE: The three cards in the Tarot associated with Gemini, an Air sign, as well as the ethical triangle on the Tree of Life, which includes the energies of Jupiter, Mars, and the Sun, reveal on one level the toll that suffering can take. Each Number Card contains two major symbolic associations, one known as a decan, or ten degrees of the zodiac, the other known as its Tree of Life correspondence—its position on the Tree—both of which add meaning to Number Cards Two through Ten of each suit. The three cards associated with Gemini in the Minor Arcana are the Eight, Nine, and Ten of Swords. I now find these cards very instructive....)
Follow Mr. Mellifluous on the path of Gemini.
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