Thursday, October 18, 2012

Perspective

Perspective, my first experience with it was NOT a positive one.  I was in middle school and we HAD to take art.  I worked so hard at being an artist.  In one of our assignments we were supposed to draw telephone poles that looked smaller and smaller as you looked off into the distance.  No matter how hard I worked at it the lines and shapes lay flat on the page.  There was no indication of perspective.  I did that assignment multiple times....as I did every other assignment in that class.  A measure of my artistic ability in the medium of drawing is the big fat D MINUS, that I got.  NOBODY got a grade that low in that class.  I had NEVER had a grade that low. 

I was afraid my parents would be very unhappy with me.  They both chuckled, said, "Well the apple didn't fall far from the tree (Whatever the heck that meant, I thought), they signed my grade report and I vowed to NEVER take art again.  A vow which regretfully I've kept to this point...that may change, I'm still here!

In that context perspective was the visual image of how things look smaller the further you are away from them, and closer as you move towards them. 

That is a very limited definition however.  The definition I prefer has nothing to do with art class or that dismal D- which apparently still bugs me....

Tonight, I was having a mini-pity party that may have involved lots of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from Dick's.  (Really I have ALWAYS thought pumpkin chocolate chip cookies were a waste of calories....not at Dick's market they aren't)  I was about 4 hours in to various mindless TV programs.  I was doing my best to drown out the sorrow that currently resides in my soul 24/7.

My husband died in January.  He had come close to death to many times in our marriage of 27 years and I hoped desperately that as always he would bounce back again.  Not this time.

To say that I miss him seems so trite.  In fact my pain reminds me of that show in reruns "Charmed."  There are the good guys, and the bad guys.  One of the things that the bad guys do is to reach inside a living person's chest and pull their heart out.  Done in a very campy way or I couldn't watch it.  (I'm not fond of violence!)  Still that image describes how I feel a great deal of the time. 

The pain is so extreme that doing much more than eating pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, watching TV, and vegging in my apartment is almost impossible.  I do try to exercise, and keep in touch with family. 

Back to perspective.  So, in full mourning this evening it became aware to me suddenly (by virtue of the dog's panting, and holding his front paws over his privates, OK I may have made some of that up), that it had been a long time since said doggy had been outside to relieve himself.

So grumpily I put on a coat, and proceeded to take the dog out.  We were walking along and suddenly I saw a Christmas tree with brilliant red lights.  In actuality what I saw was an optical illusion created by a house with lots of windows that had lots of stop lights reflecting in them.  Still my breath caught for a moment in my throat.  Christmas has always done that to me...reminded me of all that is most precious in this mortal moment.

I saw through the eyes of perspective that this pain will never completely leave as long as I'm separated from my honeybunch.  Yet, the severeity of the pain, and the inability of functioning more than partially will improve. 

I think tonight I earned a better grade than a D MINUS on perspective....but I think I'll still go eat another cookie, and watch one more show before bed....Hey, tomorrow is a new day!  That is also perspective.


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