Friday, January 28, 2011

Flying Solo

While dog, cat and house sitting for friends away for a month, I am enjoying listening my way through their CD collection. This morning, I heard these great lyrics from Paul Simon's "You're the One."

"Nature gives us shapeless shapes-- clouds, wings and flame. Human expectation is that love remains the same and when it doesn't, we point our finger in blame, blame, blame."

It seems that I'm at the time of life where so many people I know are choosing to be out of the main relationship they have been in for years. One partner "leaves" the other. The language that we use about "leaving" or "splitting" or "ending" or "failed marriage" doesn't seem to include the feeling of natural transition that Simon speaks of.  Maybe we hurt ourselves by holding on so hard for the sake of permanence.

Not to say that relationship doesn't take vigilance, like the tending of any fire or flood. But maybe thinking of love as clouds or wings is also helpful?