I am tempted to tell you to listen to Adagio For Strings or Ravel’s Bolero as you read this.
Tempted to share a story with you about how elephants don’t require safe spaces or places to speak their truth.
They don’t wonder or worry about what others will think. There is no fear about reciprocity or of not being cool.
Elephants just do as they feel without concern or regard for those things and they make it clear how they feel about each other.
An elephant wouldn’t understand the headline or wonder about subtext or subterfuge. They either do or they don’t.
Love that is, elephants love and not in a soft or superficial way.
They love hard with all they have and all they are.
It is never questioned by them or others.
Acceptance isn’t a word elephants understand.
An Elephant Never Forgets
The gift and the curse of the elephant is the memory of all that has happened to them and all they have experienced.
They remember the pain and the joy, the laughter and the light.
That memory can be the source of their loneliness and the reason for why they feel hollow and empty because they remember what it was like to fly and to feel full.
And that memory can be like a giant pool of hope they drink from, the thing that moves them from the empty fields they wander through.
Because it is also a divining rod that says what was lost can be found again, maybe not with Mr or Mrs. Babar but someone new.
Sometimes the elephant shrugs his giant shoulders and says fuck it, if these fields are fallow it is time to find new fields of green to frolic in.
It is too bad we can’t be more like elephants and say those three words without fear or regard.
Too bad we can’t just be and live as we wish because fear prevents us from following our trunk to that which we most desire.
“I don’t want to wait anymore I’m tired of looking for answers
Take me some place where there’s music and there’s laughter
I don’t know if I’m scared of dying but I’m scared of living too fast, too slow
Regret, remorse, hold on, oh no I’ve got to go
There’s no starting over, no new beginnings, time races on
And you’ve just gotta keep on keeping on
Gotta keep on going, looking straight out on the road
Can’t worry ’bout what’s behind you or what’s coming for you further up the road
I try not to hold on to what is gone, I try to do right what is wrong
I try to keep on keeping on
Yeah I just keep on keeping on”
My Silver Lining-First Aid Kit
A Handwritten Note
There is a handwritten note sitting in a drawer, waiting to see if it will ever move into an envelope to be sent out for consumption by another.
Is there more life the words on the paper and poor penmanship than contained within the sometimes sterile world of pixels and electronic pages?
Who can say for certain, maybe there is and maybe there isn’t.
But an elephant never wonders or worries about safe places and spaces. They never concern themselves with three words they used to say because used to isn’t in their vocabulary.
They are who and what they are and those they care about always know.
Maybe we should be like elephants.
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