what does live to the point of tears mean
Living to the point of tears: Ii years and no time at all…
Later on Harold died and I was sorting through pictures, I came across these ii favorites and the magnet to secure them onto my refrigerator. The portraits and caption accompanied me all twelvemonth. They were among the very last items I packed up when I left our firm of 17 years concluding August.
There are scores of philosophers who have written their ain commentary to Camus' quote "Live to the point of tears", and information technology wasn't my initial intention in this postal service to add some other. Merely I knew I wanted to include the photograph and then it struck me that the quote seemed an oddly appropriate description of the state of my middle and my life at this time.
The language of fourth dimension – which is to say: "two years agone today Harold passed abroad" – isn't something that grief respects especially. Grief is non-linear; setting it's own temporal rules where memory seems to fade in and out according to some whimsical design that emerges from one'south unconscious suddenly (or non then) bringing with it a presentness of the issue at one time disorienting and timeless. The compass of fourth dimension becomes unmoored when the familiar signposts of a shared life no longer exist.
Camus' quote offers a number of toeholds for me in this terrain. For ane, Harold was a human being who lived life with great gusto right on the precipice of laughing or crying (and sometimes both simultaneously) as an expression of how life itself welled upward in him — and overflowed. So too, for me, "living to the point of tears" has been — unwittingly — a kind of motto for this passage. It's not as smashing and tidy as I might like at times, but there seems to be an organic rightness to continuing to say a big "yep" to life in the aftermath of loss while staying open up to the enormity of the turmoil it leaves in its wake. For me, every bit I know is truthful for and so many others who navigate the inevitable tides of loss, the rudder that keeps things afloat has been the support and honey of friends and family who have taken me in both literally and figuratively!
The winds of more change came quickly on the heels of Harold's passing. Within a twelvemonth, I had made the difficult conclusion to sell our house and detect a new domicile for our beloved dog Muffin (who is happily living with a new and loving family!) However, the old adage "when a door closes, another opens" was in play and the act of letting go was met by new forms of healing. My dear friends Jane Bernhardt and Paul Friedrichs opened their dwelling house to me for housing Harold's studio which is abuzz with activeness. And another angel, Leslie Novak, together with Jason Novak and Lynne Taylor have brought me into their happy dwelling – aka The Carriage Business firm, where monthly business firm concerts of blues, alt rock and all manner of other skilful sounds fill up the infinite with dance, music, good vibes and laughter.
On all fronts I am graced past a lightness of being to balance out the heaviness of grief. Harold'southward work is receiving tremendous new audiences and admirers from Paris, to London, to Istanbul, to Atlanta, to New York and beyond. My 2 wonderful sisters travelled with me to Provence last fall for my start vacation in nigh 20 years, and soon I will be traveling back to England (after a great time with Harold'southward work at Photograph London) to spotter my niece, Sarah Kotkowski, jitney the Women's Lacrosse team for Ireland in the World Cup, followed by a trip to the Scottish Highlands with my sister Ruth. It seems that when the heart breaks open up with sadness, it allows the possibility of new joys also.
Some years ago, I became a fan of this whimsical artist and writer, Brain Andreas. I bought this poster of his words and drawing considering they described for me the experience of knowing and loving Harold. His laughter unfurled, information technology reverberated, it nonetheless echoes inside me. The earth…my world… will never be the same. He was a force of nature. His contagious spirit brought me to the bespeak of tears for 27 years. It nevertheless does and I know it always will. I miss you Harold.
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