#SOL17: Give Me Things that Don’t Get Lost

Painting w digital remix (M.A. Reilly, 2017)

I. 

Those haunting lines from Neil Young's song, "Old Man" have caught my attention. Young sings,

“Love lost, such a cost.

Give me things that don’t get lost..." 

and I am nodding alongside him--as I too want things that don't get lost. I too have wanted the permanent.

II. 

What are the types of things that don’t get lost? What treasures do we carry that do not have the potential for wandering, migrating?  

Nearly two years ago I wrote that perhaps those people in your life who are your true North are the types that don't get lost. I was thinking about what sticks to you, what stays true through all the changes. A handful of months later, my true North would suddenly die and I would wear that loss like a glove that fits too perfectly, too necessary. 

III.

I thought heartbreak was the result of Rob dying. It was not.

IV.

During the last year, I could not seem to let go of that which was already gone.  The second after Rob took his last breath, he was gone from that body. I remember looking at him and thinking, This is not my husband. This is not my Rob. Nonetheless, I looked for him in all that was familiar, sought the comfort of his company when things felt new, and thought if I practiced being really, really good, he would be able to return. 

I'll tell you now that the main source of my heartache was not letting go of what was already gone.

V.

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Love doesn't get lost--even with death.  

It adheres.  

It is bone deep. 

As Devon would tell me one night when sadness was more pronounced than not-- Dad isn't gone, we carry him with us. He made us.

Love endures.

John Keats, Neil Young, and Me

Things I wonder about….

And Full of Sleep (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

I. 

What are the types of things that can’t get lost… Tonight I am thinking about that line from Neil Young's "Old Man." “Love lost, such a cost/Give me things/that don’t get lost…”

What are the things that do not have the potential for getting lost?  Perhaps those people in your life who are your true North, if such people exist--if true North is really a constant.

II.

What does it suggest to want things with no potential to get lost?  I wonder here about Neil Young and what was on his mind so many years ago, about the finality of those we have loved deeply who die and the deep desire for them to remain.  

Tonight I am thinking about John Keats’s letter to George and Tom Keats.  In that letter, Keats writes about the qualities that form “a Man of Achievement.”  He notes:

“what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason” (from here)
 

Is it a matter of achievement to be easy with not knowing?  Is that somehow related to the idea of things being lost, perhaps even selves.