BRIARS AND BROKEN GLASS: THE WALLS THAT BIND US

Rumi:
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Years ago when I was visiting a resort in Palm Springs a man told me a truth about my heart.
I had never met him before and have never seen him since.  We were sitting around a pool.
(I was drinking I believe, he was not.)  For whatever reason this man knew what was going on inside me and I knew that I needed to hear what he said.

He described my heart like this:
"You've experienced great loss already in your life .  You have a lot of grief inside you.
Your heart is a beautiful wild garden that has been walled away.  In the back is a gate that has been cemented shut with a thick chain and rusted lock.  Around the thick stone walls, briars have grown and on top shards of coloured glass are cemented in place to keep others out.  When you've tried in the past to pull others close to you, they run away screaming from all the cuts and scratches.  You're like a man begging someone to love you and holding them at arm's length so they can NEVER really get close to you.  Aren't you tired of being alone?"

This made me cry.  Because I knew he saw the truth about me at that moment.

Yes I had shut my heart down some 18 or so years earlier when my mother died.
At the time of her death I was 15 years old.  It was a difficult time but I shut down my feelings, compartmentalized them if you will, started drinking and moved ahead.  When I found myself in California, an aging party boy at 33, I realized that being irresponsible and high wasn't quite so cute anymore.  My one relationship with my ex in Florida had ended badly.  I had done a geographic and moved to California thinking I would become a famous actor and all my problems would be solved.

Only problem...I brought me with me.

Throughout the years of recovery I've uncovered, discovered and discarded much.  I sawed off the iron gate and melted it down for a lovely sculpture in the garden.  The briars are all gone, chopped away and I have the scars from the scratches to prove it.  I've even opened up a part of the wall and created a lovely arch for people to come through but only when invited.  I am, however, still polishing the broken shards of glass.  My hope is one day they will be like the pieces of glass you find at the ocean, polished smooth from all the tumbling in the sand.  My hope is they will reflect beautiful light and not cut anybody who might decide to hope over the wall and surprise me.

Final removal of the "walls that bind us" will only help the garden that is my heart to grow outside of it's confined space.  It's the one garden that needs no pruning.  Fall is here soon.  Time for a harvest!

LYRICS FOR TONIGHT'S SONG


CARLY SIMON LIVE



Do the walls come down
When you think of me
Do your eyes grow dim
Do the walls come down
When you think of me
Do you let me in
Do the walls come down

Nothin' like a rainy night
To set your heart rememberin'
Nothin' like a vivid dream
To take you back again

Somethin' in my pocket
That was written years ago
In faded ink said "You are my fire"
Do you think so

Is it easier for you to say
You never loved me anyway
Or do you hide me in your attic trunk
Like a stowaway

Do you think of me