Soul mates

¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ficción, una sombra, una ilusión,
y el mayor bien es pequeño.¡
Que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son! *

 
 
 
 
 

Life is the madness that is the dream. And when we die, it is then that we awake.

Marjorie’s children have been slowly and methodically negating her house. Trinkets and furniture, old photographs and letters, clothes, books and shoes are all moved from within, where she has lived for the last 62 years, and placed in boxes, stacked in the garage. Easy access for transport.

After she awoke, the house stood still for about six months, only to be periodically visited upon by the children she left behind. Curtains open. Curtains shut. This light on, that light off. Today odds and ends were placed at curbside: ‘Free’, the sign says. I walked across the street to see what would be worth the taking, and I found many things: books, record albums, candles, garden pots and yard décor. All the while I couldn’t stop myself from thinking, “Will it be this way, when I awake? Will my children discard my trinkets to the edge of the curb for any stranger to take home?”

Her children have been going through drawers and cupboards. Throw this away. Take this to the curb. Put this in the truck. Is this the inevitable end? Will my children ‘clean’ away my memories? What else? I suppose such is life. I sit on my stoop and watch the house that Marge dreamed in, and though I did not know her well, a tightness grips my heart.

Madness and life are soul mates, and as such, the prospect of any facade of sanity certainly misses the point.

What is life? A frenzy.

What is life? A fiction, a shadow, an illusion,

and the greatest profit is small.

For all of life is a dream,

and dreams, are nothing but dreams! *

* Life is a dream
Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600 – 1681)

Dickens' Dream
Robert W. Buss (1804-1875)
Unfinished Watercolor
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