“The word was born in the blood, grew in the dark body, beating, and took flight through the lips and the mouth. Farther away and nearer still, still it came from dead fathers and from wondering races, from lands which had turned to stone, lands weary of their poor tribes, for when grief took to the roads the people set out and arrived and married new land and water to grow their words again. And so this is the inheritance; this is the wavelength which connects us with dead men and the dawning of new beings not yet come to light.”
― Pablo Neruda
Found myself awake early this morning. So many things racing through my head that it was hard to focus on trying to sleep. Big things and little things- a gnawing worry for this country and tiny nagging reminders of things that need to be done soon. All things that couldn’t be resolved at 2 AM in the woods where I live.
Then it struck me that it was around this time of the morning that my mom died 25 years ago on this very date.
Geez, 25 years come and gone. And there I was, in bed thinking of her death.
I tried to dredge up memories of her, hoping that it would drown out the other things in the background of my mind, all screaming for attention or at least equal air time. Some memories came easily. Those are the ingrained ones that have become part of the synapses.
But I tried to dig deeper and there were only shadows of memories. Not real recollection. Maybe not even real. I don’t know for sure and most likely never will.
25 years has a way of changing things in your mind.
So, I tried focusing on the traits that I may have inherited from her, some good and some bad. Some neither. They just are what they are.
Some made me laugh. Some made me cry.
Laughter and tears. Quite the inheritance.
There are certainly worse things in this world.
It made me think in bed of the painting above that I recently took out to the West End Gallery. Called From Whence I Came, it’s part of my Archaeology series from back in 2008. I think this piece was only shown once in a gallery before it came back to me. For some unknown reason, it found its way to the back of a closet, where it has been residing for the past 12 years. I pulled it out a few weeks back and it was like seeing it for the first time again.
It made me think of all the choices and serendipity that it took for me to arrive at this place in the world. It’s the same for all of us. We’re all products of the decisions and events that took place throughout the history of man on this planet. One person succumbing to a virus instead of surviving it a thousand years ago and our whole history as a person would be different.
We’re all the spearpoints, the leading edges, the very top of the pyramids of all that came before us. We were brought to this point by the bones and blood of thousands of lives before us.
All their strength. All their vulnerability.
I don’t know where I want this to go. Just thinking out loud, I guess, between the laughter and the tears.
Gotta go. Have a good day, folks.
Redtree Times 
What a wonderful painting. Of course I can’t point to “a favorite” among your works, but this would be on my top ten list. The white stones and gathered chairs are a wonderful visual metaphor for a nest and eggs — it’s just so appealing.
Thank you so much, Linda. I like it, too, and find myself wondering why I seemed to hide it away all these years.
Maybe those ‘eggs’ had an especially long incubation time!
That might be it!
Them’s some deep thoughts for so early in the a.m. Gary. But you are right, just how much might the world have been changed by an unknown virus… how much has our future been altered in the past year? Whose death will we not even realize we need to mourn? Who isn’t going to change the future now? What might have been that never will? Yeah… Deep thoughts… Worthy of archealogy in themselves.
All good questions, Gary. Time will be the revelator, as always.