eros, logos: one art

Monday, February 23, 2009

one art

Sometimes it seems to me that I have spent my life in a process of discarding things, rather than acquiring them. One symbol or symptom of this is the material--It's not that I am not a sentimental person. I am. But for some reason my sentiment doesn't attach to possessions or material things. I don't have photos, for example, or photo albums. I don't have keepsakes, I travel light. This is the opposite it seems of how we usually go through life, acquiring houses, possessions...I practice losing farther, losing faster...keys and phone numbers and shoes, and mementos I meant to keep, train tickets, silly things.
I wish I did have these things sometimes, but they run through my fingers like water, like air. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Sometimes it makes me sad, this seeming inability I have to save material things...I think it's that I dont trust them, or that I cant bear to hold them and then lose them--so i lose them myself, first, like leaving people also.

I look for you automatically in this airport, scene of so many partings and meetings for us. I cannot help expecting to find you among the expectant faces there. How long will it be, I wonder, til I cease doing this? The involuntary lift of my heart upon arrival, the drop, when I remember, you will not be meeting me this time, --and when you do, when i allow you to again, it will not be the same. Not those meetings we once had, for so long...one of us jumping the barrier and running to the other. How many times did people applaud us, when we'd stop kissing finally? I'd blush always, we couldn't look at the crowd, only each other...and then we'd hurry, to get to the car, so we could kiss again, no audience this time.

This flight, I looked out at the dear and familar country below me, where I have so recently been, the plane banks, drops, beginning its final descent...always before I'd feel my heart lift at that moment, and it did again, but then dropped with the plane. I pressed my hand against the glass, felt the coldness sink into my hand, the only clue that the air is thin and cold, though the sun was rising and beautiful.

I looked for you in the crowd, helplessly, although it was not you meeting me, but someone else. Travel farther, faster.

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Labels: 2006

posted by O @ 09:37


5 Comments:
At 23 February, 2009, Aurore said… I am almost the complete opposite, I spend my life surrounded by things - movie tickets, gifts, cards...I wish I were different but I just can't seem to let go. On the other hand, I do discard people far too often. Or worse, I push people out of my life. Beautiful post as always O. At 23 February, 2009, Frequent Traveler said… "I cannot bear to hold them and then lose them..." You described the anticipation so perfectly O - and then the letting go process so succintly in those last three words... I wish I had that skill. The material things are not that important to me, I regualrly de-clutter. It is people I love who I cling to in my heart far too long after they have left my life... At 25 February, 2009, alphagirl said… I look back for him standing in line to pay for lunch - ready to give him my change... I see someone who resembles him from afar and realize it is not him long after my heart heart has skipped several beats... I remember a kiss in an elevator that will never happen again... Like you these are the "things" I keep for I have no "material" things to lose from him... For what he gave to me were moments in time and the memories...all to painful these days. I wish for the losing of these faster...and that I could travel away from the memories... At 02 March, 2009, carrie said… i've lost almost everything i've ever owned three times over but it's funny the certain things that always stick around through the losses. random things. why those things? At 04 March, 2009, DnWormer said… I've tried to live by the axiom, don't have anything you can't leave if you have to get out quickly. As I've gotten older thats just too hard to do.
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