Today was a rather hot day for May..unfortunately I did not manage to experience much of it, as I spent most of the time in the office, but the little breaks spent on the courtyard gave me a good estimate of how hot it got in the past days. Though I felt the heat, in my mind the month of May was still "programmed" as a spring month, therefore I could not really identify it with the summer...but then..after work, and after my Russian class, which was rather enjoyable today (I realized, that I can truly use Czech to help me bridge the gaps I find in Russian, and I can use Russian to help me understand Czech more) I set off and headed home. As usual, I do not like to take the public transportation home, I prefer to walk, to have a bit of exercise, to explore the face of my city in every season, in different weather, and I'm never disappointed, it always has something new to show, I just need to be alert, and keep my eyes open.
So I was walking home, and got to the bridge that connects the 2 parts of the city. I stepped on the bridge, and as always, spent quite a few minutes standing on the bridge, enjoying the spectacular view...and then..it happened...I took a deep breath, and a familiar smell entered my nose..a smell that is hard to describe by words...I knew this smell already, all I needed to do is to search for it in my head, amongst the memories. It was a smell from a distant past, a smell that returns to my life every now and then. Slowly it dawned on me...that it is the same smell I used to inhale as a child, while looking at the river near our home. I call it the fragrance of the summer night that follows a hot day...but it does not reflect too well what that fragrance means to me...It is the fragrance I first met with as a little child, when my dad took me to the river, and we spent the whole day fishing, sitting on bales of hay, playing with the dogs, swimming in the river, roasting the fish we caught...it is the fragrant in which there is combined the smell of the freshly growing grass, the smoke coming from the campfire, the breath of the river that exhales with a big sigh upon reaching the plain, after having worked its way from the mountains, hurling stones, transforming things along its journey...this fragrance holds within the air that flows out of the pores of the thousand blooming flowers, the perfume of the full moon, the curious look of the thousand stars that populate the sky, the sweet music of the crickets, the merry concerts of the frog society....I remember this fragrance from my adolescence, when I would go home after school, would head to the field, and stand by the river...telling her about my dreams, about my search for love, my wish to find someone whom I could invite to come and explore the vast lands, mountains, valleys, forests and waterfalls of my inner world...I would stand there and give her my heart..I'd look at her waves, her calmness and would slowly melt in her...and today...while standing on the bridge and marveling at the sunset, that painted sweet shades of pink, purple, yellow and orange on the horizon, I could inhale again the special fragrant...and all my memories came rushing at me, they filled my heart completely and I wanted to shout..or hug somebody, because a piece of me was found again...just when I thought I lost myself thoroughly...just when I was not sure any more what I'm doing, or if there is a meaning, the fragrance from an era, when I thought everything to be possible, found me...it tossed me back in time...it showed me the dreamy girl I used to be..the one who believed in miracles, respected and loved nature, conversed with the moon, and was strong enough to put up a fight against all the attacks of the world.....I stood there and let the breeze clean my soul...sweep me through completely, filling me with new hopes, and dreams...
This evening I learned again...that love perseveres...that it is always there..ready...waiting for us to find her..she does not disappear, though there are times when we might think so. Love perseveres, but it is us...humans who change...and then just like me...I started to loose faith, I blamed love for playing a nasty trick on me...for making me believe, that there are eternal bonds, for letting me trust to the fullest, and give myself completely to love..without even warning me...letting me know about the risks...I lost faith...I died...the winter covered me completely with its frost, snow, and dark evenings...clouds and stillness...I became numb from the cold..I lived a vegetative life...but finally I understood, that I was wrong in blaming it on love...It is us...the people who time to time let love in..we nurture it like a precious plant..we take care of it, because we'd like it to become a strong tree that will stand against the storms of time, and at the end bearing fruit..but it is also us people who time to time close the door on love, chase it away, or just neglect the plant, and place our attention on other things which we qualify as "more important"....we make mistakes, and maybe the biggest of all is that time to time we take love for granted...and do not make effort to preserve it...we think it is "normal" that 2 people love each other..and after the first months of passion we let it become thin air ...that slowly diminishes...I've also made that mistake..and I had to pay a high price to learn the lesson...probably the highest price I've ever paid...I've lost my soul...and for months my life was dominated by lost hope, emptyness, and self pity...days that seemed never to end...dreams that did not let me sleep during the night..memories, pictures that rushed through my veins as poison, slowly eating me up from inside....a feeling of having been tricked...a feeling of not understanding anything anymore...the world turned upside down, and I started to question everything, because my castle was shaken at its foundation...a love I thought to be contracted in heaven turned out to be an illusion...an image from another life...the fire burned and left nothing but ashes and smoke...but today I realized that sometimes there can be gold found in ashes...that just as the nature rebirths every spring...so it is with the heart...it needs to find the source again..the fountain of love, and start to learn to live again..step by step...slowly...taking all the time that is needed..with courage...trusting again..hoping again...dreaming again...
No comments:
Post a Comment