Affirming Rilke

 

A few years ago when I moved in with my current spouse, I revealed in conversation with a friend, that my new sweetie and I had separate bedrooms. My friend was damned near appalled by this news, and basically said we were setting ourselves up to fail before giving the relationship a chance. I explained to her that I believed in the concept that individual alone-time in a relationship is a fundamental pillar of happiness therein, and even helps to sustain a level of romantic attraction that otherwise diminishes over time. This concept keeping a relationship strong by "together but separate" was garnered from experience in past relationships, and presented beautifully to me in the writings of Rilke who said: "I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other." And I further paraphrase Rilke in saying that true sharing is actualized by periodic interruptions of solitude. I believed that then, and presently believe it even more by virtue of a three-year espoused relationship that has only grown stronger.

My partner and I still have our own rooms and separate daily occupations. We do not avoid one another in daily living - I don't mean to give that impression. We come together to interrupt our respective solitudes every day; from the simplicity of sharing coffee in the morning to the greater glories of human interaction ... whenever. And when we reconnect, the union still has all the blissful desire and attraction as in our earliest hours of acquaintance.

Perhaps in the years that lie ahead, my opinion on the matter of "together but separate" may change. But I see no evidence thus far.

Chrys Who?

I was born on a crispy fall morning at the Methodist Hospital in Lubbock Texas. The nurse presenting me to my mom probably never experience a mother refusing to hold her newborn son but she did on that otherwise perfect October day. My mother's postpartum delirium was triggered by my countenance resembling my departed grandfather who mom despised for the abusive alcoholic that he was. My first meal was formula administered via a bottle rather than the nectar of my mother's breast. Despite this seemingly inauspicious beginning autumn has always been my favorite season.

At home, the rejection and denial did not last.  The precious antibodies of breast milk and motherly nurturing were rendered soon and well enough. . . perhaps due to a mother's sense of duty, or maybe because I was a “delightfully quiet and beautiful baby” as mom would later brag. 

The myriad and wide ranging array of philosophical systems, spiritual postulations, systems of government, arts and sciences have fascinated me in my various phases of learning... and probably still do. However, as much as I enjoy reading and learning, I don't claim to be a pundit of any topic and only express my opinions through writing about my perspective, personal experiences, and the experiences of other people as I interpret them.

I am amused by how so many people give serious consideration to their religious beliefs and institutions. Religion is the crucible in which philosophy is made meaningless by virtue of its abandonment of reason and logic. Agnostic atheism and a sprinkling of curiosity and hope about an afterlife of some kind is the only  consideration of spirituality that I am able or even care to achieve. Like most sentient beings, I am inherently resistant to the concept of oblivion, consequently I honor my hope for some form of continuance after this body expires. This hope at times draws me into contemplating the concepts of energy and how it relates to living organisms. The electromagnetic spectrum ranging from light to microwaves, to the electro-chemical impulses that “drive” neuro-activities – indeed the mechanism that sustains our very thoughts and consciousness. I give an inkling of credibility to the possibility of a sustained existence beyond death because electromagnetic energy can exist without a container - radio waves, light, magnetism, microwaves, all travel and exist in space without any vessel or other medium of containment or support.  That fact alone provides me something to hang my spiritual hat upon – that the electromagnetic energy of my essence will simply become free of its current biological vessel -- fun wishful thinking not taken seriously.

I do believe that we are all connected in a "cosmic energy" sense. We are all children of the cosmic singularity that brought us together at this time in this place in the universe. Someday my corporeal visit here will be over, and the electromagnetic energy of my essence will return to where I was before I arrived.

Peace, Love, & Understanding

Chrys

* * *