I have tried repeatedly to capture the unique texture, dimension, and outright ghostliness of the cypresses here in Louisiana. I’m sure a better photographer could come closer to doing so. Perhaps a video in the golden hour would be more effective. Perhaps a special lens would do them justice. I wasn’t prepared creatively or technically for the almost otherworldly nature of these trees: especially those hanging skirts several feet above the earth, no water hugging their roots.
The unattainable is often so entrancing: the sunset no cameras can capture, the mountain dimensions no words can accurately express, the softness and deceptive strength of an infant’s hands, or the love we are certain will set us free.
All these fleeting moments and things that are beautiful by their very impermanent nature, we desperately want to cling to as if they are the mountains themselves.
Sunsets fade in seconds, not minutes. My camera can prove that. Mountains erode, though not so much in our lifetime, but certainly in our mind’s eye after we drive away. Our little ones grow up (in a perfect world) to become better adults than we are (if we do it right). And love? Love, even if real, can be chipped away at by harsh words and actions or is simply, achingly lost to time.
I believe there are people I will always love, despite not being loved by them as I love them. In time, might they have freed me? Would they have let me be me and still swing joyously in their orbit? While there, they made no rules and pushed no boundaries.
How long does that last? How long before the love I feel now would wither in the day-to-day grind of stress, expectations, and overstepping?
I see some in my circle of family and friends who seem to balance conflict with respect, and I see autonomy given easily between them. But life is ephemeral, and I see the grief of the lost as well. Loss of a spouse to illness or accident brings an entirely different sort of spiritual effacement.
This soulmate concept—this “love will set me free” sentiment—why do we clamor for it so feverishly only to be beaten down again and again?
I have set in my head that, at this age, it is easier to live in the pain of a love I can’t have than to ever explore or wait for a love that will only be taken from me again. Easier to recall his voice and mossy eyes and smile and miss those things rather than to look forward to being “set free” by someone who will only chain me again with one sort of demand or another.
Easier for me to take photos of sunsets and trees and mountains.
I realized in typing those last words that when I told him I was going on the road not because of him but for myriad other reasons, I inadvertently lied. However, it’s not so simple as, “I’m running away from this because it’s too painful.”
It comes down to this; on the road, I can’t stand still. I can’t form strong attachments because each exchange is fleeting. That is what I want. Being alone is necessary for me to heal after the demise of a twenty-nine-year marriage and, later, the angst of a brief romance.
When I drive away from here, I’ll feel as I do each time I move on, a slight misgiving as if I’m forgetting something. I’ll check and double-check all the connections, scan the site for belongings, and search my pockets for bits and pieces. I’ll fight that smallest of tugs to go back to Texas, to what-ifs.
I’ll wish I’d somehow captured those damned trees. They’ll be there when I come back through, but they’ll never be quite real to me unless I can record them accurately.
Like Louisiana cypresses, love also will never be quite real to me.
