loss is loss

I read lots of poetry.  I always have.

I appreciate the gravity, value and sometimes life-changing presence that words are capable of.  There is a poem that has stayed with me since the first time I ever heard it.  One Art by Elizabeth Bishop is a stunning, beautifully painful piece about how both simple and complex loss can be.  How artful she is in explaining the different levels one might experience it at...  I find it fascinating and inspiring as a reader and a writer.

I thought of her poem last night, when I realized upon arriving home from a quick trip out, that I had lost one of my earrings somewhere along the way.  These are not expensive jewels, but rather a pair of bronze-colored roses made from a cheap metal, that I bought at a Southern department store while on a solo radio tour about four years ago.  They must have cost about five dollars, on sale. Oh, but I love them. I wore them during the photo shoot for Singer, among several other occasions that I deemed special.  In fact, I had them on last night because the day had been particularly hard for me, and I thought that wearing them might cheer me up in some small way.  And now there's only one.

It's amazing the sentiment we apply to objects, isn't it?  But, it's so true, and I'm a sentimentalist to the core.  My home is a veritable museum of experiences that I have had and people whom I have loved.  It's just who I am.

I'm challenged to wonder if maybe the lesson is always just to accept what is. Things get broken.  Things get lost.  People too.  Do we cry, bury it in the earth and let it go?  Do we keep the part that remains and make a proverbial pendant from the leftover hardware?  Do we make a list of all of the other amazing pieces of jewelry that lay unappreciated in the box, and try to get grateful about all of that fare?  I can go a multitude of ways.  In my younger years, I'd have made the pendant, and worn it until the chain eventually wore down and broke (postponing the inevitable loss).  As I grow up, I'm considering new options, but I can promise you that no itemized list of "just as good" accessories will be made in this house today.  No sir.

Bishop said:

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

But, is it just that easy?  I've lost big and small things in my life.  I've lost love, friendships, family members, material possessions, hope, trust, faith, patience, and lastly, my way.  And I've had to grieve for them all, in varying degrees.  Perhaps with the tangible, it's the association or the memory that the lost thing provokes in us, which is actually to be mourned.  Maybe we're always just mourning some piece of ourselves that has changed or gone missing, and the objects are merely catalysts for the acknowledgment of such.

I don't understand the science behind it, and it may not be mine to comprehend.  I do know that other people have struggled with these same mysteries, as is evidenced by the brilliant expressions that live on to tell the tale.  Someone recently told me that I'm too open; I give too much of myself away to be known.  It makes me sad that art and honesty scare some souls, and that mine maybe among those that offend.  But, I take comfort in knowing that the words of others have saved my own life, in their strength, wisdom and forthrightness.  When we read that someone else has felt what we are feeling, it doesn't matter if the words were written two hundred years ago, or last week.  We connect.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

I see my own life's map in this writing.  I see the places in which I have invested years of my life and moved on from.  I see the lives I had in each of those towns, and the people I knew then...

In three lines, she gave me that.  Powerful.  I think that the key may be to choose our words carefully, knowing that they have the ability to outlive us in this way.  Did Ms. Bishop intend for a songwriter in Nashville to be looking to her work for guidance, more than thirty years after her death?  Probably not.  But, here I am: one gold rose, and a heavy heart.  And I am so grateful for the words that give me permission to be just that.

Should you happen upon a lone rose earring, who happens to be out exploring the world, please remind it where it lives.

Thank you for listening.

xoxo, bu