Hello, Goodbye

On a recent trip to Hamburg, Germany, nostalgia got the best of me, and I emailed an ex-boyfriend i hadn’t spoken to in thirty years. We had met in the ’80s as international students in Helsinki, and had some wild times together in Hamburg, both studying arcane Ugro-Finnish languages at the time (don’t ask me how).

He is now a distinguished professor at a European university, with many awards for his intellectual achievements, and me, well … I cannot tell you how grateful I am for my decision to leave the academic world behind and choose this adventure of embodiment instead.

So what’s with the nostalgia? The impermanence of life, the passing of things and people, rips my heart open on a regular basis these days. You know, Rilke’s flame in which everything shines as it disappears . . . the poignant beauty of each moment, but only if I can be present for it.

You ask me how? Drop into deep play with us. Read what others have said. And when all else fails … do something outrageous in spite of overwhelming odds. (If you like Conchita, Google up some interviews with her (here’s a recent one). Her message of love and tolerance is impossible to resist.

I look forward to being with you in a timeless movement moment, sometime soon. Hello, goodbye.

PS. My ex did email back with a sweet, loving message. Despite all this impermanence running rampant everywhere, it seems that, as the South African poet Dennis Brutus says,

somehow we survive,and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.