Today I wish to conduct a little experiment. All the postings you read on this page, are exercises in stream of consciousness. Not so much the flow and rhythm of the sentences and phrases, but more so the content of the ideas, emotions, stories and confessions. The ramble of the prose is somewhat more calculated and drafted, but the subject matter is supposed to be a collection random remembered emotions and happenings of the few days prior to construction. I believe this allows me to be most honest, for I am expressing with as little perspective of rational distance as possible.
However, this post will be written in two parts. The first will be with the agitated mindset of this morning and the second half will be with a more sedate and embarrassed mindset of in a day or two's time.
Feel free to Feedback me in between.
Hershatlarge
Outlets of expression.
I don't really want to stand in witness to your violent, bodily reaction to a bout of food poisoning, but I will hold back your hair and clean up after you, because it provides outlet for expression. I don't really want to risk rejection, but I will tell you of my pain, for it provides outlet for expression. I don't really want to sacrifice one of my precious days off to prepare for a celebration of your birthday, but I will mix and bake a cake from scratch, because it provides an outlet for expression. I don't really wish to avoid the confrontation, but I will adhere to your request to not mention anything to her, for it provides outlet for expression. I don't really wish to post blogs that aren't dripping in the abrasive wit of my old-man-grumpiness, but I will write this morning, for it provides outlet for expression.
Last week, I went to a wedding. A wedding held in Brooklyn. (To hold a wedding in the blooming spring, on the island of Manhattan, is to add a touch of fairy tale - a touch of romance imagined by the fiction of another - but to hold a wedding surrounded by the cracked concrete of Brooklyn, adds a touch of realism and determination that all marriages need.) I donned a black suit, threaded on a borrowed, skinny black tie and stood with a poorly executed false smile for all the photos. It's not often that one's brother gets married and an innate and great distaste for photos, must be sacrificed in order to acquire outlet for expression of love towards him. I danced, I drank, I caught up with members of the extended family, I amiably dealt with my Grandmother's renewed vigorous demands that I immediately find myself a suitable bride, I played ball with my nephews, I let my brother know how proud of him we all were and are and, as traditional at all family functions, I left early.
I had fun. Of course, the day was not about me, but from a selfish and personal view, I had fun. I guess I'm just a sucker for a wedding. It seems currently in vogue to view weddings with tinge of cynicism. As if marriage, and the celebration of it, is old fashioned. I'm not one of those that holds this view. I think Sly Stewart, when talking about something else all together, said it best, whilst addressing that mass of muddy humanity back at the Woodstock Music Festival:
"You must dig that it is not a fashion in the first place - it is a feeling - and if it was good in the past, then it is still good."
Weddings are still good. Perfect, in fact. A perfectly large outlet to express Love, that requires a massive sacrifice of self.
How much are you willing to sacrifice? How far, are you willing to go, deep into the turf of Self and give up and over in the pursuit of Love? As much as my brother? As much as your parents? As much as that friend who you really don't like, now that she has hooked up with that guy and completely changed as a person? As much as you did the last time you stood here, before it all went wrong and she broke your heart? As much as those around you are telling you not to go? As much as what you know, just know, might be too far? How much?
How much?
