I began this blog several times with the intent of writing something meaningful or beautiful or stylized in my typical manner. It failed. I was trying to write a small tribute to a friend…but every line wouldn’t fit and every theme crumbled under my fingers. Delete. Delete. Delete. I’ve never really experienced a writers block, and I always have an uncontrolled stream of consciousness to fall back on. But as I began this venture, no thoughts would connect. Nothing made sense. What was I even trying to say? A tribute to what and why did it matter. Ultimately, I decided that I couldn’t simply write a tribute to him…I couldn’t even blurb him in a blog. To do so would somehow defame and tarnish the person that he is.
I found myself with Atlas (name altered to protect the individual. He has a terrible fear of being attached to a right brained Amelia). In spite of several shadows and searing eyes, we somehow formed a friendship…somehow formed something. We agree to not ask questions. It’s a silent, unspoken agreement. For one, neither of us have formed a clear answer (i.e. neither of us are willing to admit that there is something we don’t understand) ; and moreover it makes whatever it is more tangible. Unrest. Discomfort for two untrusting individuals to know there is a something understood about them. Someone of the same…again…whatever it is?…
There was a time when life disallowed an existence, and whatever it was came to an abrupt end. It was then in the darkness of my resulting downfall that I discovered one of the greatest truths of my life to this point. The part of me that I had become with Atlas, was perhaps my greatest strength in the life I was ordained to live. I could face anything alone because for a short time I had been fortunate enough to face things with him.
Moving to the actual purpose of this blog however, I will introduce any happenstance reader to a boy. On the one hand, I initially had intended to call him Icarus, the boy who escaped the labyrinth with a pair of wax wings…soaring to the sun and out of his cage and bondage only to fly too high and melt his method. Icarus’ fall was perhaps the greatest of this earth’s tragedies. So much beauty in the ascent and so much suffering and silence in his fall. Falling alone to his death where the commutes of mundane life continued. Poet after poet have fawned over his tragic story and the resounding understanding of human suffering in the world’s reaction to it…the absence of reaction. A fall to his death after an ascent so noble…no one saw. Icarus fell.
My friend indeed has nobly ascended the life that was given to him. I cannot even express how truly remarkable his flight has been. His falls…though few… are always unseen. But Icarus is not his name. Only the title of Atlas can suit the strength he carries. Atlas…the Greek God punished for eternity to carry the world on his shoulders. This is my friend. There is one thing that we will always have in common, and that is the beautiful but desperate weight of carrying the burdens of those we love, but Atlas…he carries the world. Such a lonely weight it is to carry. Condemned often to carry it alone, he steps. One foot and then the other. Nevertheless it is load no one else can carry, hence it’s curse. Those who need him, steal his every breath, and he breaths out at the end of a day, a quiet sigh…yearning for the quiet hollows of his mind. There are no intruders, there are no needs in the silence of sleep. For a few fleeting moments, minutes, or hours, he withdraws into the depths of his mind, pleading for it to slow, for care to cease, for life to freeze. Yet it pulses.
In some dark corner of this world, some basement of hell, he trembles from the loneliness of the burden. He faces alone the events of the day, and the weight of the world yearning for a quiet hand to hold, even something beautiful to spy while yielding his strength to his life’s purpose. Heavy. Alone. Dark. Fearful. No man on the weight of his fading shoulders sees the tears that fall in the tombs of his loneliness.
Sleep takes him. A glorious death for a moment relieves the duty of the damned. He recedes to an infinitesimal nook where for a stage of time, he slips into the brilliant sensation of SELF.
And in some smaller corner inside of the corner inside of the corner (and so forth) of the most penetrated chasms of his mind, he exists for a moment as only Atlas. In a glorious silence, he tip toes, absorbing the soundless solace… to a room. The room is white and well lit. It is empty save a small crafted cupboard. The cupboard is flush with the adjoining wall to his entrance. He has been here many times. The crafted alabaster piece, resting at eye level, conceals within it those things most precious to Atlas. No chain or lock secures its contents, but the hinges lubricate only with his tears. He supplies them with ease in his solace, where he alone can hear their echoes.
The small cupboard door peaks open and he beholds his treasures. He gently pulls a silver box from the peculiar shelf it rests upon. He lifts the lid and softly unwraps the silk and tissue in which its contents rest. Emotion. Experience. Memories… A compassionate glance from a friend. A sensual loving touch a woman he loved. A mother’s embrace. A breakdown of self, spent unalone. A moment of perfect human connection. The memory of someone he trusted. A simple lullaby. Simple laughter. Simple times. Atlas weeps. He basks in these beautiful holdings he is forced to hide. His weaknesses and quiet triumphs. He awaits a day when he can share the room and the cupboard and the contents with someone.
…An action potential meets a synapse, the eyelids respond. His eyes are open, the day begins.. and the room and chasm and corner and cupboard fade…the solace and beautiful lonely places of his mind diminish, and the burden of the world waits to be carried.
Emma Wheeler Wilcox’s words were never truer than with my friend Atlas: When you laugh the world laughs with you, when you weep, you weep alone.
Thank you for carrying my burdens.
amelia