Humans are a cornucopia of tendencies. One of which is to leave things unsaid and emotions undone. We think we have time to communicate our hopes or recapitulate fears or just speak for the hell of it. But is that always an option?
Reading pages after pages where people, long gone now, have poured their thoughts and dreams, I realized I had so many things to say to them, to let them know how joyfully unbridled they make me feel in their labyrinth of words.
I have a box of unsent letters to people without a postal address.
Letters that could never be sent. Feelings that could never be expressed. Thoughts that could never be conveyed. Ruminations that could never be assuaged. A possibility that could never be. Empathy that stayed. Warmth that was exuded then, now extended.
If I could talk to you, Vincent Van Gogh, I’d tell you how you made me fall in love with love. You gave me a reason to persevere. If loving something to a point where you couldn’t tell day from night leads to you being called crazy, you’d actually paint the stars and moon, trees and fields from a window of a mental asylum. You showed me it’s okay to fail, to fall, again and again and then some more. I see you with a paint brush in your hand, that hibiscus red in your eyes filled with sleep, in that messy room-filled with passion, wonder-smitten perspective on things and canvases- filled, blank, unfinished. You are standing by the window, overlooking the lush green fields, perplexed. ‘How can I imprint this enormously gorgeous view with just a brush’ you think, but you already know the answer because that’s all you have been doing all your life- a heart filled with pure love, a sort of reverence for your work and you are good to go, good to live. Day melts into night and you metamorphose that blank canvas into a star-lit sky with stars that swirl with a turbulent flow heavy with the weight of your suffering and melancholy. You keep the brush down and look at the piece you’ve just finished, unaware of the cascading rouse of beauty it will follow. You lie on your bed, close your eyes for a little while and drown yourself in the dreams where you have a somber yet beautiful conversation with nature.
If I could thank you, Mary Oliver, I would do it wholeheartedly. I would pay attention to every word I utter, every gesture I make to thank you because that is what you taught me. Whenever I open my eyes and heart to the beauty and pain of the world, you are there with a sparrow on your shoulder and glistening eyes considering the rich and graceful trees, birds, grass, insects and clouds beside, beneath and above you. You use words as if they are the beads of rosary, intentional and limited, never failing to get your mystical visions across. You left your courageous hopes and dreams behind, that whisper slowly in my ears that I’m not alone, that the world is my home, my family, that it’s okay to take my time, that every time is the time to be myself. You have stretched my soul and made me more welcoming towards this glorious and daring universe and its infinitesimal elusive mysteries. Until I keep inundating myself with the enchanting sights of the world, I will keep remembering you.
Only if Seneca I could write to you, I’d affirm and say ‘yes, life is short only for those who wait for it to be long’. You have been my antidote to anxiety, you explained to me what 'kairos' means, you set me free, you took my short life and stretched it wide. You made me consider my absurd ‘busy’ life and transmogrify it with a trance like state, where the present moment is my shrine and to squander the one life I have got is nothing less than a crime. Amidst the cesspool of ‘hustle culture’ you beckon me towards the art of living, tranquility of the mind and quotidian yet timeless aspects of life.
And many more unanswered, unsent, unfinished and unrequited letters lie in my box, shriveling. But I had to let some out so that someone, anyone knows these people aren’t forgotten, just like my desire to prevent myself from plunging into oblivion, head-first.