I haven't one shred of talent; if I were to even in the farthest reaches of imagination dare to think of drawing a comparison with someone the caliber of a Maria Callas it can only be in the manner of some minutia, a way only of clarifying for the reader some small depth of ones own feeling for the self-importance one granted ones own work. It is to express that whatever talent one has been given, great or small, to lose it, TO LOSE IT, is a genuine 'little death' - and not as the French mean that phrase!
I am watching Fanny Ardant's performance of the great opera diva, Maria Callas, and in a candid scene the Callas character attempts to sing along with her own recording of one of her great arias. Her voice is lost, and she can no longer match herself on the recording. Quite literally all is lost, for nothing which remains has any meaning at that moment to her.
I have no such talent to lose, but I do understand what it is to lose what one does have, however humble it may be; in my instance it is the absence of caring for my family and home. All that I have ever done well has been done for the privilege, the honor and the sheer joy of creating an environment in which my family members might be dazzled or our guests as easily made to feel to be family. A place in which memories and ideals are ever so carefully arranged to be casually found and remembered, for a moment or an hour or a day. Where the sound of birds in the garden is transmuted by the weight of the silk at the windows or the time of day is orchestrated by the scent of oak burning in the fireplace and apples, oranges and cinnamon issuing fragrances reassuringly from the kitchen... You may find, after several hours of hunting, the photo album with your lovers picture or the novel with a special passage. And whilst you search you will be distracted by the forgotten ornament which rolls out of a packing box and which the cat bats across the hardwood floor. Will it shatter and create it's last memory now, for you alone? The drawer stuffed with old tickets to movies and plays and receipts from forgotten bolts of fabric, or the very scrap of material pinned to the tea dyed lace which made your daughter's Christmas dress, and her doll's matching Christmas dress, at age four. And when these things have slipped away, when your fingers can no longer grasp even a broken saucer from your set of china, and the last silver fork has lost its pattern name and is but a phantom in your mind; when nothing of value remains to share because it is gone, even the hearth and home: and when those last memories bind in utter isolation within your decrepit aged body, shuttered in your stench bloated heart and lost in the recesses of what once was likely your very soul, than you can no longer pretend. And when one cannot pretend than, well than, if you are lucky, you weep. And when those tears are gone you, too, will be at last finished.
If the gods have found favor in you than you will take that last breath with some of what you brought forth somewhere near you: someone will remember what you can no longer recall for yourself, and in a measure of love restore your worth.
And if you have earned their wrath, these gods wrath, well...
I am watching Fanny Ardant's performance of the great opera diva, Maria Callas, and in a candid scene the Callas character attempts to sing along with her own recording of one of her great arias. Her voice is lost, and she can no longer match herself on the recording. Quite literally all is lost, for nothing which remains has any meaning at that moment to her.
I have no such talent to lose, but I do understand what it is to lose what one does have, however humble it may be; in my instance it is the absence of caring for my family and home. All that I have ever done well has been done for the privilege, the honor and the sheer joy of creating an environment in which my family members might be dazzled or our guests as easily made to feel to be family. A place in which memories and ideals are ever so carefully arranged to be casually found and remembered, for a moment or an hour or a day. Where the sound of birds in the garden is transmuted by the weight of the silk at the windows or the time of day is orchestrated by the scent of oak burning in the fireplace and apples, oranges and cinnamon issuing fragrances reassuringly from the kitchen... You may find, after several hours of hunting, the photo album with your lovers picture or the novel with a special passage. And whilst you search you will be distracted by the forgotten ornament which rolls out of a packing box and which the cat bats across the hardwood floor. Will it shatter and create it's last memory now, for you alone? The drawer stuffed with old tickets to movies and plays and receipts from forgotten bolts of fabric, or the very scrap of material pinned to the tea dyed lace which made your daughter's Christmas dress, and her doll's matching Christmas dress, at age four. And when these things have slipped away, when your fingers can no longer grasp even a broken saucer from your set of china, and the last silver fork has lost its pattern name and is but a phantom in your mind; when nothing of value remains to share because it is gone, even the hearth and home: and when those last memories bind in utter isolation within your decrepit aged body, shuttered in your stench bloated heart and lost in the recesses of what once was likely your very soul, than you can no longer pretend. And when one cannot pretend than, well than, if you are lucky, you weep. And when those tears are gone you, too, will be at last finished.
If the gods have found favor in you than you will take that last breath with some of what you brought forth somewhere near you: someone will remember what you can no longer recall for yourself, and in a measure of love restore your worth.
And if you have earned their wrath, these gods wrath, well...
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