"Good-by to you whom I shall see tomorrow,
Next year and when I'm fifty; still good-by.
This is the leave we never really take.
If you were dead or gone to live in China
The event might draw your stature in my mind.
I should be forced to look upon you whole
The way we look upon the things we lose.
We see each other daily and in segments;
Parting might make us meet anew, entire.
You asked me once, and I could give no answer,
How far dare we throw off the daily ruse,
Official treacheries of face and name,
Have out our true identity? I could hazard
An answer now, if you are asking still.
We are a small and lonely human race
Showing no sign of mastering solitude
Out on this stony planet that we farm.
The most that we can do for one another
Is let our blunders and our blind mischances
Argue a certain brusque abrupt compassion.
We might as well be truthful. I should say
They're luckiest who know they're not unique;
But only art or common interchange
Can teach that kindest truth. And even art
Can only hint at what disturbed a Melville
Or calmed a Mahler's frenzy; you and I
Still look from separate windows every morning
Upon the same white daylight in the square.
And when we come into each other's rooms
Once in awhile, encumbered and self-conscious,
We hover awkwardly about the threshold
And usually regret the visit later.
Perhaps the harshest fact is, only lovers--
And once in a while two with the grace of lovers--
Unlearn that clumsiness of rare intrusion
And let each other freely come and go.
Most of us shut too quickly into cupboards
The margin-scribbled books, the dried geranium,
The penny horoscope, letters never mailed.
The door may open, but the room is altered;
Not the same room we look from night and day.
It takes a late and slowly blooming wisdom
To learn that those we marked infallible
Are tragi-comic stumblers like ourselves.
The knowledge breeds reserve. We walk on tiptoe,
Demanding more than we know how to render.
Two-edged discovery hunts us finally down;
The human act will make us real again,
And then perhaps we come to know each other.
Let us return to imperfection's school.
No longer wandering after Plato's ghost,
Seeking the garden where all fruit is flawless,
We must at last renounce that ultimate blue
And take a walk in other kinds of weather.
The sourest apple makes its wry announcement
That imperfection has a certain tang.
Maybe we shouldn't turn our pockets out
To the last crumb or lingering bit of fluff,
But all we can confess of what we are
Has in it the defeat of isolation--
If not our own, then someone's, anyway.
"So I come back to saying this good-by,
A sort of ceremony of my own,
This stepping backward for another glance.
Perhaps you'll say we need no ceremony,
Because we know each other, crack and flaw,
Like two irregular stones that fit together.
Yet still good-by, because we live by inches
And only sometimes see the full dimension.
Your stature's one I want to memorize--
Your whole level of being, to impose
On any other comers, man or woman.
I'd ask them that they carry what they are
With your particular bearing, as you wear
The flaws that make you both yourself and human."
--Adrienne Rich, "Stepping Backward"
As some of you know, this Adrienne Rich poem is one of my favorites for saying goodbye. While it may seem a bit early to some of you for me to start saying my goodbyes, I said goodbye to my good friend Sue at the end of her visit this weekend, knowing I would not see her for over two years. Although I have at times over this past year lived an ocean away from Sue, it is a daunting prospect to think of so much time outside of easy communication with this person who was, for a couple of years, a daily part of my existence. I don't worry about our friendship, as the two of us will certainly figure out the system, even if that means learning morse code in order to get in touch. But this goodbye has me thinking about goodbyes in general--what they mean, how we say them. For Sue and me, goodbye was a night filled with giggling and reminiscing. Fortunately for the two of us, we've shared a lot of unforgettable experiences together--memories which I will hold close to me until I see her again and spend yet another night laughing until dawn.
On the way to the Franklin Farmers' Market. We look about 12 here.
Soap for the discerning nose.
The band.
Everyone loves a dancer.
The local honey people.
I believe the dark clover was our taste-test winner.
Sue at Merridee's in Franklin.
Mom and dad at lunch; dad looks very suspicious.
Beautiful girl walking, Main Street, Franklin, TN.
Bridge on the a nature path, Percy Warner Park, TN.
"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."--Robert Frost
The girls surrounded by books. Oh so appropriate.
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