Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Sing, Thou Sirens of the Deep
At this point, unless things change, Divorce day is scheduled for December 2, at 10 AM. What makes this really strange is that this was scheduled Monday, and today I got called by the dean of my old college to see if I wanted to be one of ten people (including the college president, other deans, etc.) at a leadership prayer breakfast in downtown Chicago.
After much soul searching, I'm thinking my last act as a husband should be to be there for my wife, such as she is. I'm also thinking that if I go to this because of the leadership part or the honor part, and not the prayer part, I'm using God as window dressing, and that's basically wrong. I could definitely go off on her about "this is how it feels to be abandoned" or something - she certainly deserves to go out of her marriage alone and abandoned just as she did me. I also know the advice many of you would give me, particularly those who know Theo and her tirades and so on. But she was there for me with Yakko's being put to sleep. When I needed her, despite everything, she did show up and hold me while I cried the terrible soul-crushed agony of a grown man loosing his best friend yet again.
I've linked to a painting I dearly loved when I first saw it as a print several years ago, but neglected to purchase because I thought it would send the wrong message about why it was placed in my home. I think anyone seeing it now and knowing my story would be less focused on the nudity. The Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper, 1898.
Daedalus created wings for he and his son to escape the labyrinth of Crete and return to Greece, but Icarus - so excited by flight - flew too close to the sun. The wax holding his wings together melted and he fell to the sea and drowned. His father flew back and forth looking in vain for him, crying out for him, and so the legend ends. In this painting, he has washed ashore and is now wondered at and mourned by the sea nymphs - his drowned eyes not comprehending their tenderness or beauty, they lost in wonder - not comprehending where he came from, but recognizing that it must have been a beautiful adventure that went very wrong and separated them forever though they touch.
My childhood was not unlike that experience, with my father repeatedly warning me what not to do with an aircraft. I always saw a little gleam of Daedalus in his eyes when he warned me like that. I always tried to thank him for flight by letting my story begin like Icarus but not end like it.
Fortunately, my last two years of beautiful flights and agonizing losses has been met with such sea nymphs holding me on occasion and telling me I’m an adventurer and that my adventure does not end on these rocks, that someday someone will join me and fly with me again. And unlike Icarus, my ears are not so drown nor my eyes so separated from the gift of sight to not look back and thank you. So bless you, my dryads of the deep, you beautiful ones. For Icarus and the Icarus within every man, I bless you and will one day fly for you.
At this point, unless things change, Divorce day is scheduled for December 2, at 10 AM. What makes this really strange is that this was scheduled Monday, and today I got called by the dean of my old college to see if I wanted to be one of ten people (including the college president, other deans, etc.) at a leadership prayer breakfast in downtown Chicago.
After much soul searching, I'm thinking my last act as a husband should be to be there for my wife, such as she is. I'm also thinking that if I go to this because of the leadership part or the honor part, and not the prayer part, I'm using God as window dressing, and that's basically wrong. I could definitely go off on her about "this is how it feels to be abandoned" or something - she certainly deserves to go out of her marriage alone and abandoned just as she did me. I also know the advice many of you would give me, particularly those who know Theo and her tirades and so on. But she was there for me with Yakko's being put to sleep. When I needed her, despite everything, she did show up and hold me while I cried the terrible soul-crushed agony of a grown man loosing his best friend yet again.
I've linked to a painting I dearly loved when I first saw it as a print several years ago, but neglected to purchase because I thought it would send the wrong message about why it was placed in my home. I think anyone seeing it now and knowing my story would be less focused on the nudity. The Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper, 1898.
Daedalus created wings for he and his son to escape the labyrinth of Crete and return to Greece, but Icarus - so excited by flight - flew too close to the sun. The wax holding his wings together melted and he fell to the sea and drowned. His father flew back and forth looking in vain for him, crying out for him, and so the legend ends. In this painting, he has washed ashore and is now wondered at and mourned by the sea nymphs - his drowned eyes not comprehending their tenderness or beauty, they lost in wonder - not comprehending where he came from, but recognizing that it must have been a beautiful adventure that went very wrong and separated them forever though they touch.
My childhood was not unlike that experience, with my father repeatedly warning me what not to do with an aircraft. I always saw a little gleam of Daedalus in his eyes when he warned me like that. I always tried to thank him for flight by letting my story begin like Icarus but not end like it.
Fortunately, my last two years of beautiful flights and agonizing losses has been met with such sea nymphs holding me on occasion and telling me I’m an adventurer and that my adventure does not end on these rocks, that someday someone will join me and fly with me again. And unlike Icarus, my ears are not so drown nor my eyes so separated from the gift of sight to not look back and thank you. So bless you, my dryads of the deep, you beautiful ones. For Icarus and the Icarus within every man, I bless you and will one day fly for you.
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