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Mar. 21st, 2005 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
somedaybitchwhen i was a little girl my dad used to tell me stories about heaven and what happens to the soul when a person dies. he would weave these great tales about being able to explore whole galaxies, bounce from planet to planet in a solar system like they were so many stepping stones in a stream, travel forwards or backwards in time in the blink of an eye because time no longer had meaning. i remember feeling vaguely jealous of the dead. dad said you could live whole lifetimes in other places, other worlds, or other times in your own world, hang out with DaVinci or Michelangelo, torment Dante while he was writing his Inferno, walk with Ovid, lounge on the steps of the library and listen to Sophocles or Aristotle, watch sadly as Alexandria burned, whisper in Faust's other ear.
we would talk about a time we'd like to visit, who would be fun to sit and have coffee with, what planets we would visit, what galaxies might have life in them and in what strange and wondrous ways that life would be different from our own. that freedom of the soul sounded like such a gift, always more compelling to me than the notions of angels and harps hidden behind pearly gates, of sin and redemption, as if God truly understood the nature of man, the endless curiosity that went part and parcel with a questioning mind and free will. it made divinity sound more, honest.
i don't know, of course, if any of that is true but i do know that it fueled a child's mind with wonder and hope, not a small amount of faith in the strange balance of things, and a lifelong quest to know, to understand, not just about how the world worked but about people, how they perceived, how they tried to live, how the best of them struggled life long to overcome the things which held them back.
i don't always get it right, in fact i rarely do, but i think that the true nature of life is in the trying, attempting, striving, the wanting. not because i can't seem to get it right and the notion serves as an excuse, but rather because everything i've seen tells me that what matters is the journey. destination is merely a starting point for the next way station.
i suppose i'll find out if he was right eventually. maybe we'll go galaxy hopping together. in the mean time, say hi to Leonardo for me Dad. and take notes. lots of notes.
we would talk about a time we'd like to visit, who would be fun to sit and have coffee with, what planets we would visit, what galaxies might have life in them and in what strange and wondrous ways that life would be different from our own. that freedom of the soul sounded like such a gift, always more compelling to me than the notions of angels and harps hidden behind pearly gates, of sin and redemption, as if God truly understood the nature of man, the endless curiosity that went part and parcel with a questioning mind and free will. it made divinity sound more, honest.
i don't know, of course, if any of that is true but i do know that it fueled a child's mind with wonder and hope, not a small amount of faith in the strange balance of things, and a lifelong quest to know, to understand, not just about how the world worked but about people, how they perceived, how they tried to live, how the best of them struggled life long to overcome the things which held them back.
i don't always get it right, in fact i rarely do, but i think that the true nature of life is in the trying, attempting, striving, the wanting. not because i can't seem to get it right and the notion serves as an excuse, but rather because everything i've seen tells me that what matters is the journey. destination is merely a starting point for the next way station.
i suppose i'll find out if he was right eventually. maybe we'll go galaxy hopping together. in the mean time, say hi to Leonardo for me Dad. and take notes. lots of notes.
