Perhaps it was that big birthday number, glimmering in the near distance, but not long ago I went through a melancholy patch where I wondered whether, in fact, I had done everything wrong. (Oh, I know that I've done plenty that
was wrong in ignorance or insensibility. And hope I know better now.) But I meant the whole shape of my life, the fact that I pursued words from an early age, that I felt early on that I had been given the most wonderful, joyous gift and that my calling in life was to use it and give back.
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Image by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
for Thaliad |
Was that mere delusion, I wondered, some mirage that retreated over the landscape? Were my dreams mere dead leaves? Had I entirely misunderstood everything, here in the world that Keats called "the vale of Soul-making?"
All moods pass on like the leaves, drifting on a stream.
And so once again I am content that my time was spent in that lonely joy, making stories and poems and tossing my bottled words onto the great sea in hopes that my letters to the world would be found. In that careful, careless manner I gave my hours and dreams away.
