It's interesting how intense our visceral reactions are to profound poetry. My morning English class consisted of only T.S. Eliot and his lazy, dreary voice clouding the classroom with The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. A hazy blanket hanged over the Shenandoah Valley as we analyzed speaker paralysis and life's continuous river.
The stream-of-consciousness shown through his internal monologue evokes speaker empathy; we feel the trials and tribulations of a prudish, transfixed man caught in the daily routine of the mundane. Often, we can translate the literary into the literal and develop a higher sense of knowing, of enlightenment as we navigate through our own waters of life.
Certain times, however, we can interpret the literal into the figurative. Today, the valley welcomes rain, a ritual cleansing, a calm shower nurturing life.
It is difficult weaving through time recognizing all moments as a gift to be taken away so frivolously as it never ceases to amaze me the brilliance of the human mind and the fragility of the human body. As we all grieve in the death of another, try not to live everyday as if it is the last, only enveloped in personal aspirations, but aim to give kindness, joy, and comfort to others.
I look at my friends and I see an immense sense of friendship and dedication, a kindness that inspires me to continuously give this gift of warmth. I look back at the events of the last day and see a fusion of the community and wonder what life would be like if there was time for a hundred visions and revisions. Can we be more appreciative? More compassionate? How can we know, more than now, the hills where our lives rose and the sea where it goes?
