I am a Rock

This morning, when I was dealing with all the difficulties of returning from my fabulous vacation, this was one of the songs to which my ipod shuffled.

Listening to it, I recalled receiving a letter during college from the friend with whom I was just vacationing. In it, she had written the lyrics to this song along with the sad tale of her recent experience with unrequited love.

We've all been there, and it's songs like this that get us through. Looking it up on youtube just now, I found those two cuties in a live performance of this song, where Paul Simon introduces the song by saying: "This song, according to Artie, is my most neurotic song. I don't know whether that's true or not. It's a song about loneliness." It sure is, and the lyrics are instructive of the fact that to some degree at least, loneliness is a choice:

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.

I also thought about the fact that it was probably within the next year that she met the man who is now her husband -- and has been for 17 years. They have a wonderful, loving relationship and four beautiful kids. That's part of what is so difficult about returning from this vacation -- I came home after enjoying 8 days with my kids and had to return them to their Dad, a man with whom I do not have a wonderful, loving relationship. Certainly, the temptation, in the wake of my divorce, has been there, from time to time, for me to withdraw "I am a Rock" style:

Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb (Is Paul's bed his womb just as my bed is mine?)
I touch no one and no one touches me.

But my friend didn't stay a rock after her loss of love, and look what blossomed. So I'm not going to either. I may be 20 years older now than she was then, but I'm also better equipped than ever (thanks to wonderful friends, lots of therapy, frequent acupuncture and an almost daily dose of heart openers in my yoga practice) to take down the walls, forget about the fortress, and emerge from the womb again.

Listening to the refrain now, I am determined not to be a rock. I reckon there are still some rocky fragments in this soil I'm cultivating -- but it's fertile, it's gets plenty of sunlight and water, and when the time is right, I just know something beautiful will take root.