Category: Words

The past is gone but something might be found to take its place.

–Gin Blossoms/Hey Jealousy

 

Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.

–Bil Keane

Yeah, sure, today is a gift, but I hate that quotation.  For one thing, as far as I can tell, it came from that irritating Family Circus cartoonist. I’m not saying that he’s wrong–every day is a gift.  His way of stating it just makes me want to poke him in the eye with a hot fork.

And to think I was worried I’d have nothing to say today. Why was I worried? I could always do a post about all the people who I’d like to poke in the eye with a hot fork.

(Momentary absence as I actually made a note to do this someday. Not. Even. Kidding.)

No, I haven’t ever  poked someone in the eye a fork. I have bitten people though. I’m not going to talk about that today. No, it’s not a long enough list for me to write a post about it.

So, do I have a point that I’m going to get to eventually? Other than the point of a fork?  Kind of.

Am I going to share it with the people?  I’m going to try. Bear in mind that I’m still heavily medicated.

It’s really more of a Gin Blossoms point– when stuff is in the past, what do we get to have now? Sure, the past is the past and the present is the present and we should live in the now and all that shit, but that doesn’t mean that the past is unimportant, does it?  Do we just leave it there and move on? No one from the past need ever darken our metaphorical doors again?

I don’t think so.

Everything we are in the present comes from everything that we did or had done to us in the past. Everyone we knew. Everyone we encountered in any way. We have to carry a certain amount of that forward. We have to (ideally) learn from it. We become who we are today as a result of all the stuff that happened in the past. Hopefully, we learned to treat others better based on how we felt when we got treated in a way we didn’t like.

But people from the past do not always stay there.

Sometimes it’s hard to know how to deal them. Maybe the ones you didn’t like much. Or the ones you liked too much who didn’t like you. Or the ones who stopped liking you.  Or maybe you just thought people didn’t like you but they just didn’t know you. The list is endless, really.

What do you do with those people from your past?

Mostly, you keep an open mind. The open mind you probably didn’t have about them back in the day.

Act like you’ve never met them, kind of.  In most of the important ways, you really haven’t.

Keep anything really ugly that might have happened in the back of your mind, but don’t be too quick to assume that ugliness is what will happen now.

If  they are people who have hurt you, try to keep forgiveness in mind. You can’t change what might have happened in the past, but does it gain you anything to still hold onto the resentment and hurt? You might not want to have anything further to do with them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t forgive them and let go of the anger and hurt. You really don’t need it. It doesn’t change what happened. In a lot of cases, assuming that they weren’t an axe murderer or something, once you let go of the hurt and forgive, you can move on to a real life friendship with them now. Really. You can.

When people from the past do come back into your life, it can be wonderful! I have a lovely group of friends who I knew only slightly in High School and have come to know better in the last several years. If we’d all assumed we were all exactly the same as we were back then, we’d have never become friends now. I’m happy that isn’t what happened.

I suppose it could also be awful, but that’s not an experience I’ve had personally. There are people I’ve run into who I don’t really care to hang onto, but I can just let them go right on by.

A lot of people I know have met up with past loves in the last several years.  A lot of people I know are now in happy relationships with those past loves. Some people I know have other relationships that have been dented a bit by those encounters, or destroyed all together. It’s hard to find a balance when there are still strong feelings for people from your past. You want to reconnect, but it can be very tempting to take it all too far too fast, and everyone ends up in metaphorical pieces. Don’t ask me what the answer is on this one. I don’t know. I guess the answer is that things end up the way they end up. Hopefully, the way they are supposed to end up.

So, what do we find to take the place of the past?

Apparently, a metric shit ton of clichés.

And the present.

If you believe another song lyric, we get what we need. Which is quite a lot.

What I need, evidently, is an editor. And based on the amount of coughing I’m doing, a big dose of codeine.

there’s a rendezvous
of strangers around the coffee urn tonight
all the gypsy hacks, the insomniacs

–Tom Waits/Eggs & Sausage

 

I knew that food would be the way to engage.
You’ve got to put something in your mouth to get your ears open
-Sansa Sambiel/Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown, Joburg

 

Earlier this week I watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show set in Johannesburg.

A lot of it escaped me (thanks, codeine and cold medicine!) but one part caught my attention to the point that I backed up and watched it again. In a part of the city called Hillbrow, formerly a white business district but now home to a multi-ethnic population, Bourdain spoke with a man they referred to as a gastronomic smuggler who runs an eat shop. A tiny little shop selling carry out food. His thing is to take ideas from all of the people living in his neighborhood and fuse them together. Food from countries all over Africa and the rest of the world.

He wanted to bring people together through food.  People buy food, and then congregate in front of the eat shop to talk about…everything. His enthusiasm was really magnetic. He had  no formal training in cooking, just a love of food and bringing people together. He was a bit like a Bob Marley of cooking.

The part that got really got my attention, even through the codeine fog, was that sometimes you have to distract people’s thinking brains to get them to really relate to each other. He does it with food.

You can do it with alcohol, of course,  but at a certain point too much booze means less communication. Of course, some people are also belligerent when they drink.

You might want to say you can do it with  books…philosophy…but where do people discuss the ideas? Over food. Over drinks. In restaurants and homes.

How did they put it in “Game of Thrones?”  Bread and salt?

There are two things you have to do to get people to talk to each other: get them into the same physical space, and get them to relax and lower their guard enough to talk.

Food does both.

We might call it a ceremonial tradition, or hospitality, but what it really is is getting people together in a space where they know they are safe. When you’re safe, you relax and let your guard down. And then, if people put food in front of you, you eat it and talk about the food…gradually you don’t even realize you’re talking about other things.

Maybe it’s hard to plot evil if your mouth is full?

There’s a certain naiveté at the core of the idea. It’s not like hospitality has ever really been inviolate–and there’s a reason for food tasters, after all, but maybe if you’re not a king or a politician there is a lot of truth to the idea that something as simple as eating and talking can lead to good things.

Maybe it only works for regular people.

And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal — as we are!
–Charlotte Brontë/Jane Eyre

Jane, be still; don’t struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.”
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.
–Charlotte Brontē/Jane Eyre

There is not a heroine who I identify with and love more than quiet, little, plain, passionate Jane Eyre

Jane who will do only what is right by her own high standards. Whose quiet exterior belies a passionate and deeply loving heart. Who has to tear herself from her most beloved Mr. Rochester to remain true to herself.

She can remain true to herself because she knows who she is.

I love that she is entirely melded with the heart and soul of the man she loves yet fiercely independent at all times.

I love that she struggles to find a balance between moral duty and her passions. I love that she molds a spirituality all her own that meets her needs. She doesn’t back down when she knows she is right, but she stands with quiet conviction, kindness and forgiveness.

I love that like a lot of people, it takes some time for her to learn to forgive.

Most of all, I love Jane for how deeply she loves.