Skinny Scarecrows and Illusions

Only Love is Real
Everything else illusion
I wish I had known what I know now
Maybe I could have spared you
Giving your youth to me
Only Love is Real
Everything else illusion

On a late fall afternoon in Michigan, I was reading. I'd look up, occasionally, and I'd see the rows of cornstalks in the distance, dancing in long shadows.

She loves the way the cornstalks move. She closes her eyes and listens to the crinkling sound they make.

They lean against each other like skinny scarecrows; skittering in the fall breeze. Row upon row, their leaves dried to pale Indian parchments.

They look like they're just waiting for the tractors, patiently, under the low clouds that stretch the sky in hues of purple and lilac.

It's what I see, too. Something to be shared. A connection, simple and fathomless.

A connection that seems different to me.

I gave my youth to a different connection. When she fled, she cast her new happiness into the seas of social media, in waves of conjured narratives.

I hadn't known that, until last night. When I saw it, my sadness was for the ghost that our past had become.

These narratives. These silly social media narratives about love and happiness. They're like movies spoiled by bad actors mumbling memorized lines.

We cannot will happiness into our lives. It didn't come from the religion and ritual of the baby boomer era and it can't be created from selfies and hashtags today.

The things people tell themselves - then tell others. Today it's as easy as quick-moving thumbs, flowing hands, fakery, and pretense. Social Media - Instagram and Facebook and likes and friends.

Illusions. When illusions blur reality, it can make your eyes water. That was last night.

This afternoon, looking at rows of cornstalks; listening to the rustle of fall leaves; watching the flocks of unhurried birds flow across the fall sky, I feel better. Connected.

I was reading a book called "AfterLife" by Marcus Sakey. In it, he describes a couple as they pass the decades in their shared experiences. And in the describing, he reminded me that there is no willing happiness into your life.


It unfolds itself through connections.  If only love is real - as cliche as that may seem - then our love cannot be from illusions. It's our shared experiences, our deep connections, our humanness - that wind the machine - the one that makes love real.

And everything else - they're really illusions.

Like convincing each other the rustling cornstalks are really skinny scarecrows.

Kinda like Instagram.

"He could see them, hand in hand, walking streets soft with snow and lit by Christmas lights. Speaking without words. Planning the life to come. Music on the stereo while they painted a new place, her elbow streaked with blue. Lazy weekend mornings, something braizing in the oven, the couch their universe, constellations of novels and the Sunday New York Times..."

youtu.be/39Fv6kGVarw

Sakey, Marcus. AFTERLIFE (p. 256). Thomas & Mercer. Kindle Edition.