Polymath's Prayer

Polymath's Prayer

Dear Ian,

My Mom was a polymath, I think. That is...."A person of wide-ranging knowledge."

Chris is too. 

I am not sure if he realizes it, but he is.

Does the lens

of his shyness and quiet sadness blind him to the perfection

of his fine mind?

 

As his Mom, more than anything,  I have  wanted for him liberation;

that he grow wings to lift him aloft that he may know himself.

For he is SO worth knowing.

My foolish impulse is to interfer.....to meddle in what seems a loneliness of being almost too keen for this blunted world.

Then again... that would rob him of the deliciousness of the journey. 

He would never let me anyway, my young Einstein.

I think that might be his method;

His science.....to ride his own nature like an engine, inward and deep. 

The true mechanics of the polymath.. is to be in possession of more desire and more depth than one's peers. To seek (and yet never quite find) that which is sought. 

Mom never quite broke free, but I believe he will. Ticking beneath the surface of my quiet son is an old soul with wisdom yet to be unrolled  and deciphered like a scroll . It is really exciting to think where his thoughts will take him.

Ian, am I a polymath?

I don't know, but maybe. I seem to catalogue a lot of ideas; then go down a fair number of rabbit trails. Hunger to know has always been an ember.

You were not a polymath,

 I do not think, 

You were an warrior and an empath.

You were a lover and champion of Chris and I.

You saw us.

I have a whole day with nothing I need to or have to do. Why is this scary? One of the mysteries of my buried self is the tug of anxiety and the pull of both hating and desiring to be alone. I do want humans near me. Humans of all sorts around me. Activity and energy and ideas and new things to see and do. I crave it. Yet the having of it frustrates. Perplexes and  eludes. I know that if I am alone, it is because I choose to be. Being with people that don't get me is too painful to take most days.

And on the precipice of this day, I begin to index the things I might do. Mow my grass, start a painting, clean out an old closet. Sweep. I could go out and be with people, in fact I do imagine it. But instead, I pile up on the couch with Old Mr. Henry and read T.S. Elliot's "Mr. Elliot's Sunday Morning Service".

I get lost looking up every unfamiliar word in my dictionary; the various analyses of its meaning. I read it again and wonder that someone  writing 100 years ago could actually describe me. I feel the bliss of really getting what he means when he describes Sweeney as:

 "shifting from ham to ham, 

stirring the waters in his bath."

(And describes Sweeney's arrogant independent ways): 

"The masters of subtle schools

are controversial,

 polymath."

Sweeney is me. I languish in my bathtub of ideas, consider fossils and ferns; birds and beetles; poets and ponderings. Hours pass as I am drawn into this and that, as I find all sorts diversions from the world of humans. I shift in my waters alone.

 I go to the church of infinite ideas to worship, instead of taking a shower and going out to be with people. I don't know why, except that the waters are warm and there is a longing; a persistent hum for me to go inward. All answers are not there, clearly, but they seem to be. As all religions, it is just my own telling of the story.  Chasing the name of a fossil, or the definition of the word "Paraclete" is consumptive. Why are a Cedar Wax Wing's tail feathers dipped in butter? Did all these bivalves die together in some mass kill or in a slow downward drift over 100000 years? Does a fish see differently in air than water?

Do polymaths have any choice in where their minds go and can we break free of it and go join a club, attend a meeting? Connect? Go forth and find someone to love? Oh, how I so want to be loved...The path of least resistance for me this day is these books, this couch, that TV;  To fall into Elliot or Downton Abbey, or whatever. It is so easy. At least until it is less lonely and exhausting to walk among others who don't get me.

    

Yesterday I saw a MEME that said:

Find People

Who Can Talk About the Universe,

Souls, and Consciousness

Makes about as much sense to me as anything else I can think of.......So, I am petitioning you, my other son, my beautiful champion......to keep a light on for Chris and I, as we navigate the waters of this human trekking. Put people in our path that get us. Salve the loneliness and kindle the fires that temper our blades so that we can slice through the unnecessary into to essential. Wrap your big arms around us as we dive deep.

    Love us and guide us....At least that's what this polymath wants, and more. 

                                                                                        Love,

                                                                                                     Mom