DROPPING. . . AND . . . LETTING GO . . . ================================== Medically speaking, dropsy is another word for edema - an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the interstitium, located beneath the skin and in the cavities of the body – usually manifested as swelling in the legs and arms and hands. That is not my problem – not the dropsy that concerns me. Dropsy is also a colloquial term for a tendency to frequently drop stuff. The cause is inattentive clumsiness and haste. That I know about. There are whole days when I seem to have an acute-but-unexplainable case of this form of dropsy. As if my hands and fingers were coated with Teflon. Kitchen catastrophes on days gone by come to mind: I recall dropping these things: a full quart of milk a large jar of honey a plate of deviled eggs a bottle of olive oil a whole pan of macaroni-and-cheese a box of blue-berries a skillet full of hot grease during doughnut-making a dozen fresh eggs and, of course, a jar of peanut butter. You can imagine . . . or remember your own domestic disasters. And then there are the mishaps in the bathroom: Dropping small pills or even a whole container of pills. Losing control of delicate parts of an unassembled electric razor. Not just dropping a tube of toothpaste, but stepping on it. And then there is the loose bar of soap in the shower dance . . . Dropping soap in the shower is a sure way to feel like an incompetent fumble-fingered fool. Soap-On-A-Rope as a solution. Supermarket disasters come to mind: I don’t even want to talk about this – you wouldn’t believe it. One piece of advice – don’t take small children into the aisles where pickles and olives are within reach. And it’s just morally corrupt to walk away if nobody else is in the aisle when you unleash the jar of salsa from the top shelf. Some Dropsy observations: 1. Things dropped do not land directly beneath the drop point. Pills and blueberries are “runners” - capable of long-distance travel. Deliberately dropping these items to see their capabilities is instructive. 2. Small items – pills, screws, blueberries will always roll to the most inaccessible place available – start looking there to begin with. Unless . . . you are operating over the sink or a toilet. Sooner or later you will learn not to do that – maybe. 3. Try not to drop things in the dark. But if you do, and it’s glass, and it breaks, and you are barefooted . . . don’t move, call for help. 4. On the other hand, very large, heavy items will fall straight down - - you don’t have to look - your toes will notify you. 5. If the container doesn’t break – no glass shards in the mess - then anything dropped may be picked up or even scraped up and eaten, especially if nobody else is around or the dog doesn’t beat you to it. 5. The contents of large containers of liquid will be distributed over a far wider area than you think – when you are cleaning up, always check the nearby walls and the next room for random splashes. 6. Unbreakable items will fall on other items that are not. 7. Remember that the law of gravity has not been canceled – things that are let go of will fall down - only balloons fall up. 8. For entertaining after-dinner conversation, ask your guests to finish this sentence: “I never will forget the time I dropped . . . When researching the word “drop” I learned that it is one of the 1,000 most used English words. Consider: dropping in dropping out dropping by dropping off dropping the subject name dropping just drop it just a drop dropping the curtain getting the drop on someone shop ‘til you drop’ drop dead drop the bomb drop off to sleep ready to drop drop your voice dropped from the team drops of rain eye drops, nose drops dropping temperature dropping the ball, a hint, one’s guard, one’s trousers, a stitch and dropping acid And metaphors: A young acquaintance recently said to me, of a girlfriend: “Her eyes were open but the curtain in her mind had dropped.” Enough of that. __________________________________________ When I went out to chop wood while waiting for the internet to be resurrected, my mind eased over into another category – a relative of dropping, but deeper and wider: Letting go. As in “turning loose on purpose.” Big difference. For example: Dropping a dish is fast and easy. Letting go of love takes time. And it’s never quick and easy. Letting go always takes time – disconnecting from family, lovers, friends, spouses, children, religion, culture, country, professions, feelings, memories, notions of self, and ways of life. All that. In my novel, THIRD WISH, one of the main characters is in a major state of letting go. He is on a train leaving Paris for Barcelona: “As the train slowly backs its way out of the station through the railway marshaling yards, Max-Pol leans back in his chair and sighs. It is as he wished it might be. The night train from Paris to Barcelona. Food of another place. Service of another time. And no one he knows has any idea where he is or where he is going. It would take Interpol to find him. Exile. Deliberate exile. Affirmative exile. To leave home, work, friends, and culture - to surface somewhere else. Exile, knowing that a new life will have to be constructed mostly out of the remnants of the old. Still, for now, exile. Not as one banished, but as one going the long way around to be at home again in his own skin. He is not going off to find himself. He knows where he is now. But for the first time in his life he hasn’t planned exactly what comes next. And, for the time being, it doesn’t matter. He recalls three sentences from the notebooks of Albert Camus: “I withdrew from the world not because I had enemies, but because I had friends. Not because they did me an ill turn . . . but because they thought me better than I am. That was a lie I could not endure.” Max-Pol takes out a fountain pen and his journal, and writes: “Letting Go is not the same as giving up. Admitting you’re beaten is not the same as defeat. Withdrawal with honor is not the same as running away.” -- And I, Robert Fulghum, would add, from my own notebooks, some rules for letting go: There is a time to let go. And a time to hold on. When you become old and wise, experience will have taught you which is which and what was the right thing to do at the time. You will have scars on your soul to show for it. You may have to let go to go on . . . But never break or cut what you can untie. -- taken from Robert Fulghum webpage.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 06:22:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015