G. O'Hall

Glors
2010-08-18 04:14:05 (UTC)

On My Fourtieth Birthday

It was my fourtieth year to heaven, wrote Dylan Thomas is
his poem……woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour
wood….well..it was my fifty sixth year to heaven (or
rather, from heaven…) woke to my hearing from neighbouring
jungle and distant beach, the cawing of crows and one lost
cock’s call, waysided from timelines…the waves in the
distance. Yes it was my birthday..and unlike so many
others, I awoke lighthearted, fresher, ever more renewed
than the dirge-laden, guilt-ridden feeling that seemed to
have soddened my last fifty birthdays.. Though my body
was evidently getting older, as I ratified upon unraveling
as I got up, that morning, my spirit was feeling freer..I
could actually stretch my wings… and fathom my breadth…
Yes, I was in our family haven in Acapulco (that’ll do
it!), It was Holy Friday..(obviously not for of my
birthday- It was Somebody else’s soddened day!) and the
family had gathered for vacation…
It was a lovely day. We all went out for a breakfast
brunch at a fancy resort hotel, laughing and taking
flashing snap -shots of everyone, at different speeds (my
daughter showing off her fancy professional camara),
needlessly since time itself, takes care of that, while
everyone sang me happy birthday !I was blessed having my
mother and father with me, my loving sisters and their
husbands and part of the twelve grandchildren…and of
course, my only daughter. I had one message for every year
lived, on my cellular and facebook!!! I felt much
appreciated, and for once, enjoyed it.
So it was, on our way home, my daughter insisted I
write my autobiography. Everyone who knows me has urged I
do so, but it was my daughter’s insistence that has me
here, tilling my soil..in the hopes it bear the fruit of a
book , which my daughter won’t understand , as she
acknowledged, but which “ I can read when I am your age…”
Now how does one go about writing one’s life. Where do you
write from…the necessity to put things in order and give
them perspective, chronologically;…the need to revindicate
a sore childhood or unjust mis-happenings, complaining ;
the need to justify ones nuances..justifying; the hope of
enlightening others, preaching right from wrong? The need
for recognition, exaggerating……None of those reasons are
now, appealing to meI’ve thought of structuring my book
into chapters, each describing scenes organized by
feelings..my life as seen through the sadness of a blue
lense…through the rage of a red lense, through the impasse
of a yellow filter….
Where am I writing from?
-Today..my birthday as I clamber the downside of the
mountain of life, no longer climbing, aspiring to reach
the stars at the summit..but foreseeing new horizons, far
and wide with downhill-ease!
- I rather think I’ll let images flow, as they re- appear
in the re-living. Time allows the poetic license of going
back into the past and re-signifying events as we retouch
memories with new significance to make them meaningful.
This subjective perspective is a right we all have,
however different be the re-creation from objectivity. I
will however add footnotes of facts for reference. My
mother and sister want to add their footnotes, too! (lest
the dirt under the rug, be uncovered)…but this is my
book…. I’m like to write from love for my daughter, from
the joy of life, from my need to share.
So don’t expect linear logic…it is the reliving of
emotions, common to us all, however different our
experiencing of them. Hopefully sharing them will allow us
to break the loneliness of self, and identify in oneness
with others.
Norah Jones in the background singing the nearness of you…
brings you back into the arms of my longing,,,and I feel
you close again…however distant…first as the memory of my
secret lover…growing into the familiar confidence You
walk with me always…walk with me too,in this
endeavor..correct me if I unleash the demons…enlighten the
scary alleys I’ve avoided..accompany me My Loving Master…
if at times I mistaken you for a memory, now I see they
were shades of you in the dark…sparks of love from your
bonfire.




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