Last night Susan asked me whether or not I’d feel any regret if we sell Rosslyn. Bittersweet, I responded, without a doubt. But no regrets. No second thoughts.
I listened to my voice groping for certainty, conjuring conviction. If we finally decide to offer Rosslyn for sale, if we find the right buyer, if the transaction happens, and if this is no longer our home, will I feel regret?
Submerged to our supersternal notches in swirling, whirling water, warm bubbles tickling tension from our bodies, our brains, the sunset’s narcotic nuances massaging my mood, I realize that Susan’s question isn’t simply curiosity, isn’t soliciting reassurance or confidence. It’s an acknowledgment of unknowing. It’s anticipated nostalgia. It’s less request to respond and more invitation to consider the open and unpredictable edge we’re approaching.
Caveat Emptor: Sometimes these posts turn out to be more tangent than target. There are those times I wrangle them back into the corral. And there are other times, today for example, when unpaddocked and with pastures aplenty to explore, I yield, step aside, and allow them to run wild, accept that I may not know best. A blog post, after all, is not a poem, a memoir, a novel. Not in my case. It’s an open studio, a work in progress, unfinished. Often (mostly?!) unedited and undisciplined. A first draft. My daily munge.
Aware that this moment and conversation are vaguely symmetrical with that long ago postprandial soak that proved pivotal in our decision to make Rosslyn our home, I consider that second thoughts may not be such a bugaboo. Regrets might be likely, even inevitable. We’re complicated. Our decisions are rarely clean cut. And our emotions aren’t tame, subservient, obedient.
Settling in and
bearing down but
also not always.
Sometimes senses
augur unruly,
wistful, wayward,
sometimes unbraiding
springtime’s scent
of uncertainty
twinged with scintillas
of second thoughts.
Am I sure, unsure?
An unpaddocked post. You were warned. Doubling back to poet, Matt Miller’s astute observation.
I wrote this not only out of a place of sadness for what will pass, for all the things that will no longer be present, but also with an appreciation for the intensity of these feelings, for how lucky we are as humans to love so much, to feel such beautiful hurt, even before the hurt has happened.
― Matt W. Miller (Source: Academy of American Poets via “Anticipated Nostalgia”)
Regret and second thoughts are not anathema. Not weakness. Not dead-ends to be anticipated and sidestepped. They are part of our marvelous yet mysterious humanity.
From wanderlust to houselust through houselust to wonderlust, our adventure continues. Old chapters end, and new chapters begin. With each new threshold, a bittersweet goodbye and a wellspring of enthusiasm for what is beginning. Always both. And so it is, as we cartwheel toward a new threshold, I do not run from the anticipated nostalgia even as I cultivate excitement and optimism for the still uncharted chapter(s) ahead!
(Source: “Anticipated Nostalgia”)
Allowing that there will be some complex, mixed emotions if Rosslyn becomes the home of another family feels freeing. This is one cost of adventuring onward. I’m comfortable with that. Now it’s time to recant with my bride, to revise my overconfident response with less bravado and more openness to a future just beginning to reveal itself.
Supersternal Notches?!
Before bowing out for the night, a quick return to supersternal notches. The term enchanted me many moons ago when I first watched, then read, then immediately reread Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. It still enchants me almost three decades later, and so I conclude with a few jottings that have nothing at all to do either second thoughts and everything to do with a lusty love for language.
suprasternal notch: the depression in the top of the sternum between its articulations with the two clavicles; called also jugular notch
(Source: Merriam-Webster)
It helps if you trace this definition onto your skin, index finger palpating the place where neck, sternum, and clavicles converge. Do you feel the soft depression?
The suprasternal notch, also known as the fossa jugularis sternalis, jugular notch, or Plender gap, is a large, visible dip in between the neck in humans, between the clavicles, and above the manubrium of the sternum.
(Source: Wikipedia)
A veritable buffet of intriguing references. And spoken aloud? Fossa jugularis sternalis. Irresistible!
Now, as the light fades from watercolor sunset to fuzzy memory to inky black awaiting moonrise, I defer to the prose poetry of master storyteller, Michael Ondaatje.
Almasy: [in his lover Katharine’s arms] I claim this shoulder blade — no, wait, I want – turn over — I want this, this [his finger at the base of her throat] — this place. I love this place, what’s it called? This is mine. I’m going to ask the King permission to call it the Almásy Bosporus.
[…]
Almásy: [to his colleague] Um, Maddox, that place – that place at the base of a woman’s throat, you know, the hollow, here. Does it have an official name?
Madox: For God’s sake, man, pull yourself together.
[…]
— Michael Ondaatje (Source: The English Patient via The Year Zero)Madox: In case you’re still wondering [points to base of throat]. This is called a supersternal notch.
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