Learning To Give Oneself Away

Recognition

The bird of ash has appeared at windows
And the roads will turn away, mourning.
What distances we survived, the fire
With its one wing.
And I with my blackened heart.

I came home as a web to a spider,
To teach the flies of my household
Their songs. I walked
In on the mirrors scarred as match-boxes,
The gaze of the frames and the ticking
In the beams. The shadows
Had grown a lot and they clung
To the skirts of the lamps.
Nothing
Remembered who I was.

The dead turn in their locks and
I wake like a hand on a handle. Tomorrow
Marches on the old walls, and there
Is my coat full of darkness in its place
On the door.
Welcome home,
Memory.
W.S. Merwin, The Moving Target


Sometimes, what matters as one grows older isn’t what one has but what one gives up. As we age, our memories of who we were and what we have achieved informs who we are now. But our day to day lives, our essential ego, our identity of the present moment, the true reality of who we are at this new minute after minute, also moves along and changes with the years we continue to spend on this planet.
We no longer are who we were. We no longer have the youthfulness, the biological vigor we once had. We have lost old loves, passions and friends. We are strangers in an increasingly strange new land. As we age, we become more and more estranged and lost from our old self and our old, comfortable loves, fears, and the reassurances of our past lives. We need to pay more attention to this passing of the old and must begin to learn how to welcome and integrate ourselves into our changing lives.
Yes, it is daunting to realize that we are losing who we were and what we have accomplished, that we can even lose those sad, bad memories which previously continued to haunt us. And now, in our middle and later years, we have a new opportunity to reinvent ourselves, to create new passions and desires; and most important, we can find new friends, do new work, spend more time in sharing with others in our new, emerging later lives.
Now is the time to learn how to give from our present, older, and hopefully, wiser, hearts and souls. We are who we are now, at this moment, new persons who have the priceless opportunity not to die unhappily, dwelling in our past, but to begin again in this new age with new prospects. We need only to have the courage and acquired wisdom to grasp and squeeze every drop of joy, satisfaction, and yes, gratitude, with the last bits of energy and compassion we still have left in us.
What I am telling myself, and you, is that this is our new, probably greatest opportunity. Look around you, what needs to be done? Who around you needs your help, your companionship, your comfort, right now? What can still make you happy, a little more content; what can make you feel like you are accomplishing something that will make a difference to the ones you love, your friends, the homeless, the needy on your block or in your town?
People and causes need you. You have a new opportunity to change your life, change someone else’s life, the opportunity to let go of those old unhappy memories and create new memories for the new you who is still alive and still has the energy and the will to do something new, maybe even revolutionary.
Let’s get going! Let’s let go of those old, faded memories and find some new ones to take their place!