About Desire...a chapter of the book
The grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.
-Ecclesiastes xii. 5.

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11-19-01 11:37 p.m.
The Rolling Stones: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might find you get what you need...ah, baby.
Chopra: Perception is the first and most important step in turning the raw data of the universe into reality.

Okay...if it was not perceived...whatever. I'll keep going on the assumption that this is not just a massive daydream taking place within a breath of some being I cannot perceive and have trouble imagining.

Bekah! This ain't no joke. It is a nightmare, but it ain't no dream. Reality turns from one moment to the next. When something disastrous - catastrophic - murderous - tragic - immutable - happens, Reality changes.

And yet I see the furniture is the same...the one missing is the one they tell me is dead. That is my girl, and I grope my way in darkness to some plateau where peace will join me and free my smile for the rest of the world...and the rest of my life.

Although she will not inhabit either again, except by love and spirit.

Desire has been known to taint my perception in the past. Maybe it should not surprise me then that your death continues to catch me off guard. Now Desire is something I would love to bury deeper than your bones daughter. I would just as soon let Desire go....

Let Desire go? Oh no oh no Desire cries, will you let me stay if I step away from your perception? Who would you be without me taunts Desire you who thought you'd title your first book "Wants"?

I've been overly attendant to wants in my life. Been complacent that needs would always be fulfilled. And I dance a tortured tango with Irony. Fall with relief into the arms of Epiphany when it cuts in. Desire has taken me many places in my life and in my mind. But it never did make a person who was not, next to me.

Upon reflection I recall that the relinquishment took place a couple of years ago. After the last time I tried to make a go of it with a man. When I ended the relationship I was encouraged to find that I did not die of Desire, that I was there all along, that I was who I missed while I was with him.

At that time my daughter was just come of age.

Having delivered four healthy children I never dreamed that Desire would apply to a 21-year-old female that I had made and raised...and these days I find that all other Desires were but the petty wishes of a spoiled child inspired by a lifelong diet of fairy tales.

Desire defines me but offers today to step back and let me grow? I do not really know Bekah, mostly (I should admit) I am just watching the ink flow.

Push-ups. Stretches. Exercise. I will want my girl until I die. Nothing can change that. Desire is equal to alive - one thing that seems nearly universally believed and portrayed regarding death is that Desire lasts no longer than a minute in the rarefied realm of pure spirit.

So okay, Desire, come sit by my side. Know you are vital to who I am while alive. Then run and inhabit a different soul when I die. Because over there all that is needed is provided while wants stay here with their human Desires. The Stones musta been talking about death, and I always thought they meant life. Silly me, but hey! I got pretty old on that misinformed faith.

All I know today Bekah is that for the rest of this, your mother's life, it cannot be true, because I cannot have you. If I ever needed a single thing, I need you. amen
- posted by barbara @ 10/02/2004 02:01:00 PM