After noon, the sun went away. It was here just long enough to tease the blowzy thistle flowers into the breeze, floating like dust motes in a Fellini movie, and to cajole me into thinking that perhaps summer might not be just an idea remembered by children. I found five fat purple figs on the tree this morning and they were a surprise; I'd begun to believe it was November. And a dahlia the size of my small dog, colored like a Trebor Fruit Salad chew, impossibly beautiful. I had a notion that everything flows through me when I walked through the avenue of oaks back to the house. I know how that sounds, but it was an honest feeling. And then I thought of Rilke.
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Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final. - Rilke
4 comments:
I'm really happy to be reading your prose again. Thank you.
Agree with @LPC above. Was thinking a few days ago how I met you through a link to your prose posted on Twitter—you were writing about staying at your grandparents house in Norwway, is that possible or did I make that up?—and I was enchanted. Later, I discovered you were known for your PR accomplishments. This knowledge made you interesting in another way, but for me your prose remains the center of all that you are because of its poetic wisdom and sensitivity, which is how I find you.
Love the Rilke quote, which makes me think of my therapist. When I began with her in 2011, she used that quote when I was in a dark place. Ever since, when I spiral down she reminds me, " 'No feeling is final', recognize it, let it wash over you, move on."
Thank you for the beauty.
xoxoxo.
I'd almost given up hoping and then...Thank you!
So glad you're back! Rilke is one of my all-time favorites. Know where I discovered Rilke? Watching the old TV series "Beauty and the Beast" (Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman)... Perlman's character, "Vincent" was often quoting Shakespeare and Rilke, and would read it in such a lovely voice that I fell in love immediately. Shakespeare I already knew, but the words of Rilke fell on my ears like an unexpected soft spring rain, and I looked them up, and found a whole new world. It's wonderful when you stumble across a magical book, or a mystical author, who brings new light to your life.
YouTube actually has many of Vincent's narrated poems... here is one, as a gift to you:
https://youtu.be/GREC7Ir212o
I found it by searching "Ron Perlman reads Rilke" on YouTube... enjoy!
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