Slivers of Light

“Art doesn’t have to solve problems; it only has to formulate them correctly.” ~ (after Anton Chekhov, 1987. There are several translations.)

Sadness presses on my body like bad weather. Not enough to smother me but enough to exhaust me. The therapy sun lamp of positive thoughts is an exertion wasted. Transcend it. Solve the problem. Such injunctions are wasted on me. Literature offers me a way out. Inhabit the sadness. Learn its grammar. Meaninglessness is still living.

 A couple emerges from a sandwich store. The woman takes a wrapped bun from the brown-paper bag and offers it to the man. She looks. They look. In that moment there are chapters of caring. Of a shared humanity that doesn’t know that love’s throat can be slit easily and by the one you loved. I want to remember. The caring for me alone. I want to retain that ---the best of humankind. Even though it hurts.

In my youth, I saw sadness as a brute thug bearing down to disembowel me. I ran away. I did that often. There is no escape from sadness. Emotional sobriety is the acceptance and governance of both the bad and the good; about reacting responsibly and not impulsively.

This coming week, I have coffee meetups with three people, recovery meetings, weekly reading seminar, finishing a novel outside of class, a Zoom class with young teens in India, the possibility of a new film and, maybe even, ramen.

 

(Photographs courtesy of author. All Rights Reserved)