“It’s a far cry from where I’ve been.” These, recent words, from a friend, in relation to evening activities. It made me think. A wry grin here, as there is very little encountered that fails to have that result. A curse, most times. But sometimes, unexpectedly, a blessing.
I ponder the nature of the ‘far cry’… trail of tears? faithful yodel seeking echo? quiet sigh that stretches longer than equinox shadows or the silken threads of regret? I’ve always thought of the ‘far cry’ as a weeping that lasts over time; the suadade of things that is carried close, nestled in the swaddling of deep thoughts that span the abyss between what we felt was possible and what we realize was never so.
I cannot say I have many regrets in life, though it is true the ones I do have reach back long and long; snaking crooked and snarled paths through the labryinth of mind, time, and being. Most people, when they speak of regret, speak of someone left behind and missed. Or they speak or some choice, unmade, that now lingers like a splinter of untested possibility. Some will say they regret not finishing a degree, or not taking that job in another country, or some other manner of external effort unmade – a lingering guilt over all the what may have beens – as if they still exist in the moment.
The pensive part of it is, they do. We carry them with us. Bowed and grunting, the knapsack of our many unmade choices, pebbles all, are no less heavy over years. Such careful pinching to pick them up, such tender delight in them, lovingly placed with some thought that approximates ‘Maybe… someday…’
I do not think it was ever a straw that broke a camel’s back. Or a pebble that would break a human’s. But the weight of thought in a wistful mind, now that is a heavy thing indeed. Heavy enough to take the light from someone’s eye. Heavy enough to bend a spine to snap. Heavy enough to pull a human into the dust.
My friend meant none of these things, or, if they did, they brushed past them all to deliver the line to me in something of a casual and self-deprecating jest. A nod to stars unrisen, or to fires that always seem to cool too quickly on a Spring-nearing-Summer night.
I recognized that wistfulness. It made me wish I were closer. Close enough to reach out and touch, comfort, and hug. Shared understanding, and the ache of waking from dreams of immortality and meteoric forever fires.
It’s a far cry from what I would say, but perhaps it will do.