Dear Eighty Year Old Self,
Have you found peace, yet? Have you relinquished the remaining gifts of youth, gracefully? Are you still enamored by the world of appearances, and the charm of words or are you, finally, more at ease with your inner life and sitting still, now?
Tell me, what became of all your spiritual tourism - are you still dallying with this and that, or have you found the courage to commit to a life-sustaining discipline? Did your literary career turn out quite the way you hoped it would, or did you turn your back on it to save your soul?
Remember when you were younger, and full of noise, and self-defeating habits? You could not imagine turning 25 because of all the inner hurdles you had to clear; you thought you'd sooner self-destruct. Then, turning 30, you felt old, almost like you were outliving yourself...
Well, as you know, something marvelous was set in motion around 40, when you began to realize your mortality was not an abstraction, and started to recognize that your pass for unconscious-living was slowly being revoked. You started trying to pay better attention.
Here's a poem, elder me, that you wrote in the midst of the sea-change that was your early 40's. I wonder how it sounds like, now, to your experienced ears:
Embracing, We Let Go
Perhaps, we are negotiating
not just with one, but always two
-who share the same soil, it is true-
one who lives, another who is dying
A shift in balance begins to take place
once a love of silence is confessed
its roots run deep, its shade a world
and her fruits impossible to forget
From the first, we surrender something
and, gradually, consent to be emptied
transfixed by so much soundless music
drunk and sated through lipless mouths
What use to name this silent master
preparing us for dying or the Divine
(I’m not sure there is a difference)
but do know in embracing, we let go.
With respect and gratitude,
your 44 year old self, Yahia
