“No man is an Island”

As a 12 year old I could not for the life of me figure out what the hell John Donne was waffling on about. At this stage my exposure to English literature figureheads comprised mostly of drunks, recluses, manic depressives and closet homosexuals, sometimes one encompassing all of the above. So it’s no wonder that my pre-teen view of life did not align with that of the aforementioned. It was was not until the sudden death of my dear Grandmother that I could begin to understand the depth and range of emotion these societal misfits had experienced. Emotion confronted and processed with an ethereal creative response.

from the nostalgic deluge,  not just because of the powerful message behind it of rural Ireland progressing from the farmer to the scholar but the memory of learning the poetry, the struggle to understand the meaning behind it, it was like reading a foreign language at the time. Not having the capacity or emotional development to even see the message, not to mind understand it. Now it’s something I can identify so effortlessly with, something that I connect with at a deeper level far beyond what I would have thought possible.

It makes me wonder what am I in the midst of now, either struggling to comprehend or just not seeing….until the next shift in my understanding.