Claude Monet: Road toward the Farm Saint-Siméon, Honfleur (1867)

" … my world ultimately most skilled at Disappearing on me."

I write this iAlogue Story for anyone who ever lost their heart pursuing love. I mean, I mostly write this story for myself. I've lost more than my heart chasing love. I've also lost my mind pursuing reason and myself while seeking to find myself. Disappearing seems the common outcome of any attempted manifestation, for how could I have possibly known how to go about acquiring what I'd never had, never known? My plans unavoidably suffer from naive notions of both outcomes and necessary actions. I generally passionately head off in some wrong direction, thinking I understand which direction to head. Later, I might come to understand that I never understood. The Gods will have been cruel or kind by then, the single common outcome being the Disappearing.

I do not get to go back home again if only because home no longer exists by then. To be fair, home was always destined not to be there, even when it served as the center of my visible universe. Even bedrock seems fleeting. I live surrounded by slow-moving verbs disguised as nouns, entities always in motion but seemingly at rest and fully capable of slipping sideways on me without a moment's prior notice. I might have expected as much, but hope springs almost eternal, permanent enough to render me innocent enough to continue dancing, dreaming of finding the love destined to steal my heart, or finally finding the reason certain to permanently take away my mind.

I remain a wreck until I can forget again. I've lost faith in my original thinking. The founder of my personal constitution was never trustworthy enough to trust with anything so precious as my life and my existence, but then nobody was ever truly competent to manage their own affairs, let alone others. I manage anyway. I mostly manage my misconceptions through a process I refer to as learning. I could swear on my better days that I have yet to learn anything. There were times, though, when I thought I knew, before I'd seen through some veil to reveal whatever lay beyond. I tried to teach others what I'd initially only speculated and found that the more I repeated my story, the more credibly I spoke. Even then, most declined my invitations in favor of their own pursuits. So much the better for this world.

We might just as well rely upon groundhogs to predict our futures, whether Winter, Spring, or anything. Do my predictions matter much? Do I rely upon my prescience more than my patience with myself? A few times in my life, I have felt so sure I convinced myself that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to pursuing. Those notions never once proved true. They were most likely symptoms of something Disappearing, for immediately following my beginning of such pursuits, I'd start noticing some fresh absence. I'd momentarily interrupt my search for wisdom to watch some piece of my intuition float away. I'd pause while pursuing love to feel my heart breaking. Later, I'd return like the proverbial hero, fresh from my daunting journey to find the locks changed and my family relocated to parts unknown. I would be home, but home would have moved on without me, my world ultimately most skilled at Disappearing on me.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz