Imaging

Posted by Waiting on Monday May 21, @01:48PM

To read a passage in a book, (or a series of books) of a land far away, and to suddenly empathize and see exactly, but in your own context ( and with your own connections)“..

I’m in love with you. With your laughter and your ideals. With your wit and your compassion.

I’m standing on a moor ”. The plain stretches around me for miles, both left and right. The sun shines weakly overhead; heather grows, purple upon white upon pink; and larks sing, the rising trilling of a chorus singing to Handel “.. its all very vast and picturesque ”.

Of course you don’t know that ’..yet. Though I’m scared the calling of my soul may suddenly slip out upon my breath or slide along my fingers. Still I haven’t spoken, yet. So I’m still safe. Free of the risks of rejection or pity or wonder“.. So far.

There’s a wind blowing across the moor ”. Isn’t there always? It tugs at my hair and my clothes. It’s gathering strength, slowly. Already it pushes me to take small steadying steps. Buts it’s not strong enough to seriously control my direction — yet.

You don’t know I love you. So when I smile at you to share a moment, you’re laughing with our crowd of friends. You accept as nothing the small offerings that I bring as such, but which in truth mean everything.

The moor is vast and picturesque, as it should be. And also as it should be, the moor is empty and I’m the only person there, alone with my miles of lazy sunshine and dancing clouds.

What would happen if I told you “.. if I made you decide whether you loved me? If I said the unspeakable? Would the unhappenable, happen?

Of course the moor is endless ”.. stretching to the horizon on all sides but one. And naturally that side ends in a cliff. But not a white cliff overlooking a still blue-green sea. Rather a red-brown-yellow sandstone cliff reaching straight and true and down. Maybe a small babbling stream really does lie at its base, but that’s much too far to see. So all the bottom of the cliff actually is, is a dark inkiness, shrouded in low lying mists.

What if the unsayable must be said? Is that possible?

I can’t see down the edge of the cliff ’.if I even lean over too far to peer I run risk of tripping. But for all its beauty the moor is pretty boring. How long can I stand here and rhapsodize before my own desire for more drags me to that edge, or before the rising wind pushes me there whether I will it or no?

Of course it’s possible that you could love me. Then the world would be bright and full of hope and laughter. As all my friends who love people who love them, tell me it is. You would take me in your arms and I would feel your palms upon my cheeks.

Perhaps there’s a ledge embedded in the cliff. A little way down, so definitely I’d fall for a while, and narrow and close, so I’d have to be lucky to catch it. But strong enough to take my weight and leading to a dale, a piece of Eden, sheltered and safe. Where the drops of light rains jostle with the rays of the sun and my soul may loaf and rest at its ease.

But I don’t think that you do. So you would look at me with emptiness in your eyes. You would turn away your face. And I would have nothing. Not even the finger tips of the hand I can so freely shake right now. How would I feel? Would it break me?

Or perhaps that fall really is unending. I could go spinning and twirling, Plummeting. While cold winds rushed passed my face and all my hopes and dreams are swallowed by the fog. I could end up upon that unseen floor, broken boned, parched and starved and searching for my soul.

Or would I be able to find the strength to pick up my life without you. To build its warmth without even a ray from you?

Of course I’ve said that the cliff plunges into mist. So the bottom, unseen, may not be so desolate at all. The babbling brook may be there. A wide valley with its clear blue stream flowing along a pebbly bed, between fields spotted with dandelions and woods of pine.

I cannot tell me what you would do, what I would do. And the fear, so large and compelling in my heart, silences my tongue. So I remain by your side, and remain untouching.

The cliff leads ..“ to Eden, to the valley, to the End? I don’t know ”“I don’t know. Which is why I have a deep, nameless fear of falling down it. Which is why for all the desolation of the moor I cannot end the sequence ” I cannot take the next step.

Though the thought tugs at the edges of my mind that it is better to let my will lead me over the edges of a ravine, feet first, than to allow the wind to throw me over head first! Though I know that if I control my fall I have a better chance of reaching the dale. Though the hope of Eden is a powerful magnet and the despair inherent in my solitude a powerful rebuff. Still the ledge is so narrow that fear stills my limbs and gives me strength, I think, to hold my feet against the wind a little longer.