Vase with Daisies, by Vincent van Gogh
Don't be confused by the nature of solitude, when something inside you wants to break free of your loneliness. This very wish, when you use it as a tool for understanding, can illumine your solitude and expand it to include all that is. Bound by conventions, people tend to reach for what is easy. It is clear, however, that here we must be unafraid of what is difficult. For all living things in nature must unfold in their particular way and become themselves at any cost and despite all opposition.
Rome, May 14, 1904
Letters to a Young Poet
that last sentence is so true. yet so hard to apply. and in fact, perhaps the cause of solitude.
ReplyDeleteit is what we have, this lens of self, through which to see and learn the world. and it seems to me we're born only partially constructed, as though we are without our full cage of ribs, and so we go seeking out that which might fulfill us. if we think it is easy then we are wrong. we have fashioned our sights to the wrong thing. it is not one thing. it is not one love although how often we make this mistake. it is in fact all things. it is in fact all love. that solitary rib leaves an awfully large hole to fill.
ReplyDeletei laugh. i love rilke as though he sits in my class three seats up. i stare at his neck, wonder who he is and why he stays distant. and then i too stay distant enough.
xo
erin