Saturday, November 8, 2014

She is Safety--She is Home

She is Home.  The source of our very essence.
We are born from either collaborative concept or randy capriciousness.
In three trimesters.
Conditions of our residence be damned. She’s our mother ship and safety is assured.
Always
Yet we are groomed for departure and encouraged to leave.  Healthy leaving sees our mother ship go from umbilical confine to swaddling base camp. You can always go home again.
But is base camp really home?
Forever allegiant and drawn back towards it. Circumstances dictate how often we return and how long we stay.
Intervals
The brevity or duration of our visits lessens not the value of our base camp returns. Nor the need to again return when we are too long away.  She is succour.
Tethers
Our earliest attempts ex base camp see us scrambling about on the lower slopes. Where the risk is low and she’s never out of eyesight and earshot.
Tentative
Ungainly but confident in our knowing. Not that our scrambling will improve but that she awaits us. Home. Our base camp. And for now to her we frequently return.
Ego
Ambition. Compelling Options. Wanderlust and Seduction. Skill and Achievement.
All bolster our willingness and ability to venture above the lower slopes. The higher we go the thinner the air and we allow ourselves to believe that this air is somehow rarefied.  Exclusive when it’s merely attenuated and less nourishing.
Hubris
Our worst self fails to see the scores of others all around us, eyeing the summit and poaching our rarefied air. The audacity to think it theirs.
The deceitful cocksurety of exclusive air carries us to even higher summits and makes home superfluous. Base camp unessential. You can never go home. Nor do you need to.
Prodigal
Yet we return. And she loves us and questions neither our impertinence nor the length of our absence. You can always go home. Our ego gives way to the reception of restorative love. Shelter without judgement. Lush oxygen. Base camp.
Untethered
Home’s permanence foreshadows base camp’s temporal utility. And we are forgiven for toggling her back and forth between the two. She was always there regardless of the construct.

But what are we to do?  To what do we return when both are gone? 

12 comments:

LPC said...

I cannot say I understand this, cognitively. I will say that maybe we return to our own hearts, with company, if we're lucky.

ADG said...

Prunella: I don't either, cognitively. Clarity and cognition haven't been my strong suit(s) for a while now.

I see my mother as the truest sense of home...the embodiment of safe harbor/haven. Regardless of how far I traveled or for what reasons I strayed, it/she/home was always there.

My mother, this embodiment (at least to me) of home and safe haven is so very close to leaving. And as much as I want her to go...and as exhausted as I am of the emotional undulation that goes with such a dignity robbing, protracted exit, I grieve the loss of..."home".

This concludes my efforts to further clarify/confuse my half-ass ersatz creative writing, pseudo-poetry. It's now back to twee stories with lots and lots of pictures.

LPC said...

I think this is the exactly right time to write outside the lines. xoxox.

Gail, in northern California said...

Oh, Max. With this writing, I sense that you are already saying good-by to your mother, preparing yourself for the emptiness her death will bring. You will no longer be anyone's child.

Be extra kind to yourself, dear friend.

tjtevlin said...

You are in my thoughts and prayers during this trying time. I would still be honored to play the Pipes for your Mom.

ADG said...

Gail...sorry to have been so out of touch. But I'm that way with everyone.

Tommy Tee-Tev...thanks, man. Your offer is humbling and sublime. Let's stay in touch. If the Lord doesn't tarry, it may be soon,

Anonymous said...

Your mama gave birth to an angel ADG. A poet and a gentleman.
BarbaraG

Gail, in northern California said...

No apologies, Max. They're not necessary. Just know that I am thinking of you and your little golden-haired girl.

ADG said...

Thanks. My mom passed away ten minutes ago.

Gail, in northern California said...

Oh, Max........I'm so sorry.

LPC said...

Ah, Max, may she rest in peace. I am sorry for your loss. May this pass through you in waves, bringing your own living peace.

ADG said...

Prunella: Thank you. While I'm sure there will be emotional moments when we all congregate this week to celebrate my mom; right now I am as joyful and peaceful as I've been in ages.

The veil of protracted angst and existential confusion is now lifted.

BarbG. Thanks