Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Humpty Dumpty on the wall before he had a great fall, the Queen of Hearts seems heartless, at least as far as Alice is concerned and fair weather friends are best in the late Spring, definitely not in late Fall.

It was in 2005, as he remembered it, although it might have been in late 2004.  Approximately eighteen years had elapsed, enough time for someone to have been born and then attained majority.  One would think a great deal had happened during that interim, and it had, but still, he felt as though he’d stepped on a tread mill, and that there he’d stayed.

His marriage had failed through duplicity, perhaps self-induced, as so many marriages then tended to end.  Something which has not changed.  But ironically, that failure had led to liberation.  It had led to what, at first blush, seemed exhilarating freedom and new horizons.  Among other things, he’d finally felt that he’d become a poet: there’d been plenty of inspiration in superficial sorrow and contrived despondency, not because of his wife’s betrayal, not really, but because so much that he’d loved, especially his family, had to be surrendered if he was to move on, if he was to regain the momentum he’d foregone for so long.  There’s a price for most things under the sun and beyond the stars, perhaps for everything.  And it seems to bear compounded interest.

Of course, his experience was not unique, it had become commonplace, almost a rule.  Except, perhaps, for the bit about poetry.  But even that was not unusual.  And it was not his first experience at starting over after a failed relationship.  That too was no longer infrequent.  Transience now seemed the rule.

There was a melody he’d come across as his life was becoming undone, one he’d listen to constantly, one that seemed to translate what he felt and what he perceived he’d feel in the future, a melody more accurate and more complete than mere words.  It started out forlornly, then became reflective, perhaps introspective, and gradually, it became joyous, even festive.  It was an instrumental ballad, nouveaux flamenco played primarily on a Spanish guitar but accompanied by diverse forms of percussion, perhaps by violins as well.  He still payed it regularly.  Over time, it acquired additional meaning as different women passed through his life, a growing list of unsuccessful intimate relationships each of which he’d ended when he realized that, notwithstanding his aspirations, they were going nowhere and that he was impeding the ability of his paramours too find the truly meaningful long-term spouses they deserved.

His life seemed to parallel that special music: streaked with melancholy and nostalgia but also, unaccountably, because it had no rational justification, stained with tedium.  Too often his decisions seemed to become based on overcoming boredom rather than anything truly positive.  Monotony, bred, not by a lack of things to do, but by repetition. 

He was accomplishing interesting, even important things, he was writing and publishing a great deal, and his counsel was sought on a variety of issues by interesting people who took his opinions seriously, as a result of which, he’d attained the respect and affection of a new set of peers, but his life seemed to lack substance somehow, as though it was bereft of flavor and aroma, as though it were set in a colorless rainbow.  He was doing reasonably well, apparently growing, apparently happy, but those appearances lacked the dimensions he craved.  He felt that he just “was”.

Lumps comfortably resting on logs all too frequently came to mind.  Although sometimes, he’d imagine that the lumps might be enchanted princes in frog form.  Or even better, princesses. 

He missed his sons, who’d become estranged and were living their own lives in another continent, one that might just as well have been another planet, but that was not the problem.  He realized that they had their own lives to live, their own goals, their own aspirations and their own new families in which his role was, at best, minimal, but as long as they were happy, or at least satisfied, he was too. 

After a number of almost satisfying albeit unsuccessful intimate relationships he’d remarried, and his new wife embodied almost everything for which he’d ever hoped.  More than he could reasonable have expected really, more than he probably deserved.  Thus, his domestic life was tranquil and, to an extent, almost fulfilled.  But still, he felt hollow.  Hollow but ironically full of clamoring echoes calling for something he couldn’t divine, something that he couldn’t define.  

He’d hoped for hummingbirds and butterflies and dragon flies but had gotten flies and mosquitos instead.  They smelled of boredom, but then, what was boredom anyway?  Ennui perhaps.  Ennui is a bit more classy and complex than mere boredom.  And he wondered if he’d attained the point, as Fernando Pessoa had once supposed, where tedium had become his most reliable and constant companion?

Not a good trait for someone with expectations of immortality.

Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Humpty Dumpty on the wall before he had a great fall, the Queen of Hearts seems heartless, at least as far as Alice is concerned and fair weather friends are best in the late Spring, definitely not in late Fall.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.