Students and Teachers

When the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready the teacher will disappear. 

I am blessed and I am grateful. I have learned so much. My most impactful teacher was and still is my bride. For decades we studied and learned the cycle of life together; the sowing and reaping, the blossoms of spring and the harvests of autumn. After our fair share of tragedy, we built a family and bought a little house too small for the four of us but more than adequate for me and my memories today. 

Together we learned to be friends, lovers, parents and somewhere along the way adults but she never lost the child in her. Her moods were my muse and I sought with my writing to chart them like the constellations in the night sky.  She was so graceful and my heart is still inextricably connected to the image of her smile; lighting up her face, lighting up the room, lighting up my soul. 

Almost a year after her passing, I am still recounting the lessons she taught me. She tried to prepare me for this time, a time when her kisses would be memories and the imprint of her body pressed to mine would be so faint as to make me wonder if it ever happened. 

So, hard fought lessons learned, I rise early and chant a mantra to her spirit, trace the lines of her form with my poems, capture sights in photographs that I know would make her ooh and aah. I drive to the gym to sweat, grunt and groan. She used to make me run back and forth in the glassed encased rooms where a paddle and a little black ball were the instruments of my destruction. 

I keep busy at night, seeing movies, making the rounds,  outings with friends, wandering the holiday fairs in Manhattan alone, but busy. I have traveled to Newport and San Francisco, staying at the finest hotels, knowing she would have loved the feel of the robe and slippers. 

When the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready the teacher will disappear. 

I am blessed and I am grateful. I have learned so much but still feel like I am a novice as I learn to navigate this world alone. I know that this is the lesson, the capstone of all lessons that she was trying to teach me. I close my eyes and see her, half smile on her lips shaking her head and letting me know in her way that the one lesson not yet mastered is that life is too important to be taken seriously and I vow to add some silliness, some ridiculousness and laughter to my daily routine. 

I know I still have so much to learn.