Taking the Time
It’s an interesting habit we have, this one, of stowing old loves (their letters and or their pictures usually or both) between the pages of some much-loved book or somewhere equally safe. Why is that do you think? To keep the memory of them warm or keep them from standing out in the cold all this time? Who knows the heart?
There’s no real rationale is there, well, not one that I can fathom anyway. If you’re anything like me there’s a tendency to forget such a one or ones that previously held our hearts so hard or for so long. That is, until like today, when they pay us a fallen visit from between the pages of that book that we haven’t read in a while.
Usually it’s from between the pages of some poetry book or a great tragedy (which the reality can reflect) or a great drama (which again, the reality can reflect). And even if the ending wasn’t as wonderful (as we’re prepared to admit) to the beginning or the middle, it seems somehow strangely incoherent of us to allow that memory or memories of those ones to be sifted and sorted at will. We do though.
The passage of time seems to favour them even more, even now, because we still have a tendency (it seems) to only turn the heat on or up when they come to visit. Yet back at reality central, here they are, relegated to the annals of our heartland history. Never to gather dust because we’ve secreted them so well.
It’s not such a surprise to me to have them turn up on my front doorstep all these years later. I knew they would and so did you. Afterall we did everything in our power to keep that door open over the years didn’t we? We did. Simply by never having thrown the letters or pictures away. Of course we knew.
And so did McKuen in 1971 when he wrote:
” Taking the time to love
is what it’s all about –
what makes the clocks turn
and the sunsets come
true and without complication.
That doesn’t mean
lying close in shut-up rooms
or staying always
face to face.
It’s meant to cover walking,
being apart and knowing
that coming back together
makes small distances
even smaller.
And taking time to love
is, most of all, caring enough
to not hold on too tightly
and yet not run too loose. “
Rod McKuen ‘Taking The Time’
in Moment to Moment.
