Google Images
Linking with Poetry Pantry #220
"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty."
~Mother Teresa
In the old house I grew up in, there was an antique velvet chair that sat in the corner of the living room draped with a sheet. It was never used as far as I could tell. Mother said it was too fine a chair to be dirtied up by our sweaty little bodies. So there it stood ,while I sat on the floor to watch television.
Years later after she passed away, the chair ended up in my grandparent's garage once again draped with a sheet. I came across it searching for old photos of my family. I had spent many nights there at my grandparent's and other friend's houses throughout that difficult time.
Looking back now, I realize it was simply my Dad's way of protecting me from the emptiness that so filled our home. I suppose he did not understand that loneliness is not merely solidarity, for I learned then, that it is also magnified by being kept apart from where you are meant to be.
You said it well.
ReplyDelete...and we have known a "..loneliness such as few do."
ReplyDelete--quoted from book Alcoholics Anonymous, p 152
One cannot write truthfully about it unless one has experienced
--and you write with truthfulness, Carrie
mmm....def some truth in that...and your dad probably had the best intentions but...hard to grow up in a house like that...
ReplyDeleteAn insightful piece, Carrie. Nice. :-)
ReplyDeleteCarrie this was beautiful in the lessons learned...we had furniture at my aunt's that was draped in plastic as we could not put our sweaty bodies on it...she had no children.
ReplyDeleteAnother wonderful write, Carrie. Penetrating snippets of profundity: soft-spoken, contemplative and real.
ReplyDeletefinely etched sense of nostalgia and melancholy
ReplyDeleteEach of hearts are etched with sad recollections where little secrets are floating around like dust in our minds.
ReplyDeleteprobably that chair is the most lonely one of all.
ReplyDeleteenjoyed reading this honest and profound piece of work.
Wow, the chair too fine to sit in.........that is sad, as is the thought of that little girl spending nights in other places, so in need of comfort.
ReplyDeleteA great prose poem. A very lonely idea, a chair that can't be sat in. I really felt it in the first to parts.
ReplyDeleteOh I loved this my Grandmother had a chair and you said this perfectly touched my heart. Thank you.Hug B
ReplyDeleteJust beautiful.
ReplyDelete