Alexandersmap

    Tag: Memento Mori

    • What Escapes Us

      “Our life is also what we have not dared to do … what escaped us.” — Javier Marias

      Javier Marias passed away on September 11th, triggering a series of tributes to a productive literary life. This quote stood out for me, for all the reasons you might expect from this particular blogger. If there’s a theme woven throughout, it’s Stoic: Memento Mori, Amor Fati, Carpe diem.

      Life is a series of leaps forward from one identity to the next as we cross the chasm of our brief time, yet some bits of our stardust are never fully changed, other paths remain untaken. And we think sometimes about where it might have carried us. What might have been.

      Does that read as regret? It’s not meant to be so. Life is full of choices good and poor. We celebrate where we’ve arrived at either way. Regret is a useless emotion best reserved for the instant you realize you’ve driven off the cliff or studied the wrong material for the exam. Otherwise it’s distraction from the path forward. We all ought to accept the guidance of previous decisions without living in the past.

      We know what we said yes to, because it brought us here. We must also accept what we say no to in our lives. We ought to celebrate the omissions for where they brought us. For these things are as much a part of who we become as the things we do choose. Every no is a yes to something else. Each decision carries us, transforms us, and we dance with the music we’re left with. Mostly it’s a real toe tapper.

      Do remember though, as we dance with where we’ve arrived at, that daring is always on the table.

    • Greeted With Joy

      “If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success.” — Henry David Thoreau

      I frequently tout the value of each day, going to great lengths to remind myself and anyone who’ll listen to seize it—Carpe diem!. Memento mori! It’s a system for being forever in the moment, maximizing each day as best you can as life throws its curveballs. And it immediately sorts obligations and opportunities into appropriate buckets.

      I’m not always sympathetic when others value perceived obligations over the opportunity to amplify living, but I’ve learned to accept that it isn’t my life but theirs. Still, the question remains, as we begin another day, what will we make of it? We ought to do our best to make it successful, whatever that means to you.

    • Here in My Mold

      ‘Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony, that’s life
      Tryna make ends meet
      You’re a slave to money then you die
      I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down
      You know the one that takes you to the places
      Where all the veins meet yeah
      No change, I can change
      I can change, I can change
      But I’m here in my mold
      I am here in my mold
      But I’m a million different people
      From one day to the next
      I can’t change my mold
      No, no, no, no, no
      Have you ever been down?
      — The Verve, Bitter Sweet Symphony

      Do you hear Thoreau’s “quiet desperation” quote in your head reading the lyrics of Bitter Sweet Symphony? This song exploded in the mid-1990’s, becoming a theme song of sorts for Generation X and maybe some of those who followed. How do the lyrics hold up, almost three decades later? I think it depends on how well you’ve broken free of your mold.

      Breaking free of that mold you’ve been cast in and following your heart is reckless. The very idea of breaking free disrupts all you’ve built around you. For what is a mold but that? Our very place in this world is determined by where we place ourselves. Life is change and moving beyond our old self. We must grow and see where the road takes us. Where our heart takes us.

      Watching people you care about quickly turn from vibrantly alive to quickly sliding into the next triggers an urgency to break molds. To do the things you’ve been putting off and live today. This is what the stoics have been telling us all along. Memento Mori. Carpe Diem.

      Get after it already. Follow the road where all your veins meet. We can all change.

    • Writing to Schubert

      How many hours
      do I sit here
      aching to do

      what I do not do
      when, suddenly,
      he throws a single note

      higher than the others
      so that I feel
      the green field of hope,

      and then, descending,
      all this world’s sorrow,
      so deadly, so beautiful.
      – Mary Oliver, Schubert

      Today is the anniversary of the death of Franz Schubert, who passed away at the shockingly young age of 31 on the 19th of November 1828. It’s shocking because of how much he accomplished in such a short span of time. Not so shocking when you consider the state of modern medicine at the time: he was treated with mercury to cure what was believed to be syphilis. I’m grateful for a lot of things in my life — being born at a time where medical treatment is a bit less hit or miss is right up there on my list. But having better treatment options guarantees nothing. We still must produce while we can.

      The inspiration with Schubert is in the mastery he had reached in his last few years. It’s something we can draw from in our own creative lives, as Mary Oliver clearly did, and I regret not leveraging his soundtrack more often myself. But then again it all comes to us at different times, doesn’t it? We all reach that point of creative inspiration when we wake up and finally see the truth. If Schubert offers any warning from his grave, it’s that we shouldn’t wait. Memento Mori.

      Schubert’s brief and brilliant life informs: we can do a lot in a relatively brief amount of time. And surely, there’s still time to do it today. But maybe not tomorrow. Carpe diem. Now get to work.

    • Into My Arms

      And I don’t believe in the existence of angels
      But looking at you I wonder if that’s true
      But if I did I would summon them together
      And ask them to watch over you
      To each burn a candle for you
      To make bright and clear your path
      And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
      And guide you into my arms
      – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Into My Arms

      Some songs you hear take time to enter your rotation as “favorites”, but others grab you the first time you hear them. Nick Cave’s Into My Arms is the latter kind of song for me. And it’s one of those songs you don’t exactly play at parties, so I have no idea how other people feel about it, but for me it’s on that playlist I play for myself. I know I’m not the only one, you just need to look at the number of views on YouTube for this song in the many performances he’s put out there over the years to see it hits a cord for a lot of people.

      I heard an interview with Bono recently where he mentioned that Nick Cave played this song at the memorial service for Michael Hutchence in a darkened room. Bono was so deeply moved by this that the song stays close to his heart to this day. Listen to the song and imagine that moment, and you might never think of it the same way again either. It’s changed how I think of it now, hearing Bono’s story. Elevating it to a new place than before. Maybe my sharing it will change how you think of it too.

      This is a love song, first and foremost, but you know it’s more than that. This is a song about questioning it all, these stories that we all tell ourselves. And maybe acknowledging that there’s something special in the universe to have put a kindred spirit in this world and pointed us towards each other at just the right moment. Serendipity? Or something more? To say you know the answer to that only means you’ve embraced one story over another. The only story I trust in the story of today, just you and me and this crazy world we live in for now.

      Just another song on my Memento Mori playlist, as I march through this one brief life. You might think that’s a morbid thing, remembering that we all must die. I think of it as a reminder to live with grace and love in these days of light. And to celebrate our time together while it’s here. To remember, really, that we all must love.

    • Today, as Forever

      “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” – Carl Sagan

      I met an old friend at the airport, both of us heading for the same plane, and we caught up on each other’s lives until we boarded the plane and went our separate ways on the other end of the flight. We spoke of family members fighting cancer who faced different expectations for the duration of their time on this planet. And saw in that brief conversation the folly of waiting for another day that might not be ours for the taking.

      Each of us reminded that life is but a brief flutter that all too soon must end. Memento mori.

      Each of us reminded to seize the day. Carpe diem.

      What will we make of this day? This, our brief dance with the world? We ought to have one eye on the moment while we aim at tomorrow. To build for that tomorrow but to not ever rely on it being there for you. Celebrate today, as forever.

      “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      Enough of talk and grand plans. There’s no time for that! Get to it already. Today.

    • Breaking Garden (and Life) Rules

      I regularly break the accepted rules of gardening. Rules like putting the tall plants in the back of the garden. But when something like a balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus) or bee balm (Monarda) are shoved way to the back you lose something intimate that you gain when they’re right in your face. So my apologies to the garden rule enforcers. Surely you see my dilemma?

      I was offering advice to a former coworker who wants to quite her job and travel the world with her husband, but she feels stuck in the job, stuck in the life she’s wrapped herself in, and is only looking at the reasons why she can’t just do it instead of finding the reasons to just go for it. I dropped my favorite pair of Latin phrases on her to reflect on: Memento Mori and Carpe Diem (Remember we all must die, and seize the day!).

      Some rules are there for logical reasons; if the tall plants are up front you can’t see the shorter ones behind them. Makes sense. Some rules are there because we’ve all grown up believing stories: you have to get a job and work 50 weeks a year, then skip one of the two weeks of vacation and work on weekends to stay ahead. Who made that rule? Someone who wants to profit on your short productive years before they turn you to dust and plan you out for someone else.

      Make your own rules. Rules like walking out in the middle of a work day and seeing how the flowers are doing, just because you feel like it. Putting yourself out there in the world, to meet it on your terms. And maybe find something of yourself that was hidden when it was shoved to the back by someone else’s rules.

      Balloon Flower

    • That Fire Was

      “Ashes denote that fire was;
      Respect the grayest pile
      For the departed creature’s sake
      That hovered there awhile.
      Fire exists the first in light,
      And then consolidates, —
      Only the chemist can disclose
      Into what carbonates.” – Emily Dickinson, Fire

      I once climbed into a cave deep in the Grand Canyon and observed the soot accumulated on the ceiling from fires generations years ago. I’ve had similar observations in fireplaces in the castles of Scotland and the old forts of North America. And I’ve come across old fire pits deep in the woods. And I’ve often wondered, who gathered around this fire? What was their story?

      With Autumn we start gathering around fires more often, warmed by the glowing embers and infused with smoky thoughts. Inevitably I think back on other fires I’ve gathered around, sometimes with the same cast of characters, sometimes with their echoes, and wonder where the time goes. The burning coals I stir become the ashes I scatter when they cool, like memories cooled with time. And I wonder, who will come across my own fire’s ashes?

      And now, what coals are you stirring?

    • A Change of Plans

      “Death is one prophecy that never fails. Every person is born with a death sentence. Each second that passes by is one you’ll never get back.“ – Edmund Wilson

      We all have other plans. Each day is expected to be roughly what we thought it might be when we went to bed the night before. But God, the gods or the universe (depending on your belief) tends to laugh at such silly things as plans. And so it was that today my own plans were set aside for the immediacy of a life well-lived ending sooner than any of us would want.

      Last week my step-father told me privately that he would die soon. It turned out to be prescient as he passed away this morning. We talked then about this blog, and he challenged me on why I wrote so much about death. I told him I don’t write of death because I’m in any hurry to arrive there, but because it’s a stoic reminder that we all face it someday. And so it reminds me that we should truly live today. Embrace life, embrace your loved ones, and fully relish this brief time we have together. He accepted that answer, and I believe he did because he did fully embrace life and those who were lucky enough to be part of his life.

      Today the world is hollower than it was yesterday. Its up to those of us who have survived him to fill that hollowness as he did over and over in his own life. I believe we do so by rising to the occasion. Our lives, fully realized, serve not just ourselves but those we touch along the way. By rising closer towards our potential we have more to offer the world. And the world could use the help. I suppose that’s all we can do in the end.

    • Memorial Day

      “And if any gaze on our rushing band,
      We come between him and the deed of his hand,
      We come between him and the hope of his heart.”
      – W.B. Yeats, The Hosting of the Sidhe

      Today is Memorial Day in the United States.  A day to remember those who sacrificed everything that we might live in freedom.  I believe that Yeats was on a completely different track with this poem, but I’m drawn to these lines when I think about this particular Memorial Day.  Death came between the hopes and dreams of countless soldiers on battlefields far from home.  And for their sacrifice we should be eternally grateful.  The older I get, the more I recognize this, the more I appreciate their sacrifice, and the more I hope for a day when there are no more sacrifices made to be memorialized.

      In The Hosting of the Sidhe Yeats writes of the supernatural and enchantment by faeries.  I’ve felt this too, in the form of the whisper of a place of significance, in the form of the muse that I channel, and through listening to the land on deep walks in quiet places far from asphalt and concrete and copper wiring.  The beauty of poetry is in the interpretation of the individual.  It means something different for me than to you, and perhaps something else entirely to the author.  Memorial Day itself is subject to interpretation.  I think of weathered gravestones with fresh flags planted beside them that I’ve visited, memorializing heroes of battles long forgotten or never known by most everyone who’s come after their sacrifice.  And those lost in more recent battles we’ve collectively conceded to for reasons we don’t fully understand.  We owe them more than politicians going through the motions at a ceremony and 20% off (this weekend only!) sales.  But that’s the way of the world; it moves ahead anyway, despite that which came between him and the hope of his heart.

      This post is heavier than I wanted it to be.  I suppose the day warrants that.  As the world reflects on the collective sacrifice of all in our effort to keep a virus in check, perhaps take a moment to think of those who sacrificed something more, and act on the hope in our own hearts while there’s still time.  We owe it to them, don’t we?