Miller, Eliot and Me... Making "Lemonade"

"Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

And this penned oh so long ago by an old "friend" who died before I was born, T. S. Eliot. How did he know? Or maybe, if he only knew. Today we fulfill his prophecy,.. too busy to question the insanity that separates us from our dreams, and to what end? Heed Eliot's admonishment, “Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.” I've been there... 

I'm partial to people who ask questions for questions beg pauses for reflection and reply. It's hard to have a conversation with someone who asks no questions. It is an omen that you are about to be treated to an extemporaneous monologue... about them.

In a poem Eliot asks, "Do I dare disturb the Universe?" and then goes on to ruffle its feathers. As one who is compelled to challange authority, to rattle the cage of my Creator, I appreciate his help.

“Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.” Sounds like Eliot was a dreamer, too, as he prods us to dare and explore. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” In Four Quartets he waxes philosophical:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

I believe I found a little Eliot in Donald Miller's Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road. "Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it for all new reasons."

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"April Showers bring May flowers." 

Clouds and rain have eclipsed my sun here in Lovely Ouray, and it is bittersweet. I should be outside, moving... thinking... shooting. I am, after all, the official photographer at Old Man Winter's funeral. 

But this rain is precious and sweet after Utah's unfiltered UV's and day after day after day of five percent humidity. It appears Bobbie has resigned herself to watercolor on this soggy day. I'm thankful for a rain that enables reading and writing. It disables my sometimes ridiculous and foolish sense of urgency to run off in search of risk and adventure. Just as I'm setting in... 

“It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.

Resign yourself to be the fool you are... we must always take risks. That is our destiny." From The Cocktail Party, T. S. Eliot.

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