Conversations with Calliope- A Cup of Loneliness

(Spring Briers)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Pretty good. I started on the next assignment Julia Cameron suggests in Vein of Gold.
CALLIOPE: Which is?
JOE: Picking out some of the themes from my narrative time line and wring about them in more depth.
CALLIOPE: And you chose loneliness as the first?
JOE: I did. This theme keeps recurring in my thoughts ever since I wrote about it last week.
CALLIOPE: What have you learned by examining it in more depth?
JOE: I'm not finished yet, but I am starting to appreciate the depth of my isolation.
CALLIOPE: What do you think led to it?
JOE: Part of it was my father's treating me as if I was not worth anything, or at least that's how it felt to me.
CALLIOPE: That would certainly make it difficult to trust others to accept you.
JOE: Exactly. I also think that moving from the world at large to an artificial seminary environment cut me off from most anything I had learned to value in myself.
CALLIOPE: Any other factors?
JOE: My father's valuing commitment. Once you said you would do something you did it. I think I stayed in the seminary for nine years to satisfy him to some extent.
CALLIOPE: What are the implications of all this for you?
JOE: That's what I haven't finished yet. Perhaps I will have more to share with you tomorrow.

Conversations with Calliope- Life Context

(Outdoor Handball Court- Dunkirk, NY)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Good, but little perplexed.
CALLIOPE: How so?
JOE: I have been working on the narrative time line we talked about yesterday.
CALLIOPE: You mean the structured interview about your life events?
JOE: Exactly so.
CALLIOPE: Is that what perplexed you?
JOE: Yes. When I wrote about my early years I discovered how happy a child I was.
CALLIOPE: That doesn't sound perplexing.
JOE: It isn't. When I got to my early adolescence, I realized how lonely and isolated I was.
CALLIOPE: You don't remember that?
JOE: I think I buried it from my consciousness. When asked to name my best friend from that time, I couldn't think of anyone.
CALLIOPE: That's sad.
JOE: I agree. I can't change anything about it now, but maybe it will help me understand myself a little better. Talk with you tomorrow.

You May Think That I'm a Dreamer

...as the John Lennon song goes, "...but I'm not the only one." I have long realized I was a dreamer, but sometimes thought I was the only one or at least one of a relatively small number. I have since realized there are many dreamers and have been so throughout history. Dreamers are sometimes seen as useless or a hinderence by those of a more practical bent. I sometimes wonder what the would would be like without any dreamers, whether the rest of its inhabitants pay much attention to the ones among them them or not. Sometimes it is lonely being a dreamer, but usually it is very gratifying.

Railroad siding junction- Batavia, NY)