Musings on Contraries and Home

I have reading ADD. I've known this for a long time. First, I can't ever just read one thing. I usually am reading some opus of some sort (Dumas awakened a newfound passion in me for LONG books--so rewarding) and then I have to read other shorter things meanwhile. Otherwise I potentially lose interest. The other way this "disorder" manifests itself is in my propensity to want to read whatever other literature is mentioned in what I'm reading.

For example, once, I was reading a biography of Emily Dickinson and the author kept making reference to two of Emily's lifetime favorite pieces of literature. Being the nerd I am, I had to read them (I've read one and a half of these said pieces and still not finished the biography), so I even found these obscure titles on eBay. Oh dear. Someday I'll get to the rest of the biography. To make a long story short, I have the tendency to go on weird and sometimes lengthy reading rabbit trails. It's strange, I know, but...it's awesome!

This same thing happened once when I opened a piece of C.S. Lewis'. This time I actually finished the Lewis piece, probably partly because the literature he referenced was not long: it was William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. An excellent poem. I loved especially that, as Blake was an artist as well as a poet, this particularly short epic was illustrated. :-)

All of these circumstances came to mind the other day in a conversation with a friend about being "home". We'd both been gone over the summer, and I had been gone on successive adventures for the last two and a half years. I'm home for a bit this time--a larger chunk of time than normal--and a certain line in Blake's Marriage came to mind:

"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence." (I find it interesting his choices in capitalization. He capitalizes "contraries" but not "progression", "human" but not "existence". However, I have no conclusions on this, only observations.)

Anyway, the part I like best is the first phrase. I thought of it the other day because of the theory behind it. Contraries offer a lot more than just progression, I believe, and I think Blake knows this. It's just a succinct way of drawing attention to the principle that nothing would be seem to us humans as "good" or as "bad" as it is, perhaps, with out the notion of the opposite. I don't think even "good" and "bad" is the best way of categorizing "everything". I think that's probably why Blake just stuck with "contraries". How fitting.

Anyway, this was brought to memory because of being home, and the conversation I was having about it the other day. I've recently gone on a six week road trip around the US. I saw a total of 30 some states and even made it into Quebec. And what's interesting is, coming home, Oregon has never seemed so green. Every time I leave and come back, home is a little more beautiful. The landscape may not change at all, but my appreciation of it is deeper because I'm more familiar with it's "contraries", that is, just other places that are not Oregon--however beautiful they may be in their own way. And we live in a beautiful country.

And Canby. It's so bittersweet sometimes coming back to the town where I grew up. I love and hate the small town environment. Everybody knows everybody. That fact alone can be beautiful or hideous depending on the character of the individuals involved. It's both here at any given time, I've come to realize. And above all, I guess, it just is what it is. I love and look forward to running into some people and feel blessed to be around so I can do that. But then, I actually dread any serendipitous occasion involving some other individuals in the community. Whatever. I just need to deal with it. I'm beginning to wonder if that's part of the reason why I'm here. I didn't plan on staying here in Oregon until I went back to Alaska. But, here I am. Again bittersweet. Although, I have to say that it's pretty awesome to have a bedroom! And to myself!

And, the in the last two and a half years, I've pretty much gotten my little Christian "bubble" popped. In a good way, certainly. I've learned so much and seen a lot. And all of it--well, most of it--has helped me learn to appreciate where I'm from and what I've got. Geographically and otherwise. But the appreciation of the geographical part is definitely a more recent development.

So these days, the joy that fills my heart on a beautiful Oregon day is incredible! My heart now skips a beat sometimes when I get that perfect view of Mt. Hood rounding the corner. I never tire of it. I get excited when it starts raining after a dry spell, I want to run outside and smell that first scent of fresh fallen rain. Love it. I even love the rain!

The other morning I was walking to my car with a cup of coffee in my hand and I suddenly got that feeling I used to get as a little girl whenever I would wake up in the woods in a tent. The feel, the smell of pine around my parent's semi-country home and even the irritating squawk of a distant crow made the moment perfect. I stopped in my tracks and had to smile. So good. And then it passed, and it was good too. The fact that I don't live in that moment makes it better when it comes.

It's good to be home. And with more appreciation. Not many can say that they're from such a beautiful and diverse place. I'm blessed. I guess I still won't know for a while whether I'll actually end up here, but I'll appreciate the contraries and progression meanwhile--or at least do my best!

And, while I've got so much time on my hands, I think I'm going to keep attending to and feeding my reading ADD! I'm on to The Brothers Karamazov at the moment. And Old Man and the Sea. And a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. Sigh. This I'll do from my bedroom where, on a clear day, I can see the tip of Mt. Hood from my window. Amazing. And I'm DEFINITELY going to keep enjoying the Oregonian coffee. There's no place like home.