Whither Though Goest?

“Whither Thou Goest?”

“You need to find someone”. I’m increasingly hearing this urgent plea from my friends. Another way it’s put, “ You’ll at least need a companion as you get older”. There is concern in their voices and I’m wondering if I should worry. It’s been 5 years since Johnny died. That is a long time and yet it does not seem like a long time. In the beginning the break up of the minutiae of daily life in the 35 years that we were together created feelings of displacement. But I had my work and my own friends and my own activities and interests that continued uninterrupted and soon took over my daily routine. I’m happy enough, I sleep well at night, I have no responsibility to anybody, I’m financially secure and totally free to do anything I please. So what is missing in my life that my friends are so concerned about?

Perhaps I should address the question, whither thou goest? I was going somewhere with Johnny, but he was called away, so I’m changing travel plans. As we put the trip together, he had his contribution to the itinerary so I have to ask myself now if I want to take the same trip exactly. In a way it is exciting to be given another opportunity to see a different world.

What makes a life full? What makes a meaningful life? I’ve said before that my soul craves for more adventure and passion and thrill than what my own talents, courage and circumstances can provide. I have to come to terms with my own possibilities, and this I hope to resolve by observing how others live.

There are the great lives, the larger than life adventures of being. The lives of talented men and women in pursuit of their art or ideas above all else command spellbinding awe and inspiration. Ferdinand Magellan defying established knowledge by sailing westward to reach the Spice Islands in the east thereby becoming the first to circumnavigate the world, did not live to enjoy the rewards of his efforts. He was killed by Rajah Lapu-lapu in the battle of Mactan, in the Philippines, but he saw he succeeded in proving his theory. Marie Curie died of leukemia, a consequence of her pioneering work in the discovery of radium. She was gifted in math and science but was barred from pursuing her goals in medicine because of her gender but she refused to give up and found other ways, and succeeded and was rewarded with 2 Nobel prizes.Gandhi and Martin Luther King went against the tide of prevailing attitudes for securing political power and effecting change, that of tearing an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, by espousing non-violence. Both lost their lives in the hands of assassins, but their ideas prevailed in civil rights and freedom movements throughout the world. Beethoven worked on the Diabelli Variations for 4 years, refused to publish it until he was satisfied that he has gotten all the music out of it, and endured poverty and failing health until he completed 33 variations, a composition that had been described as unparallelled in its imagination, power and subtlety. Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, rebelled against her confined and prescribed life as an aristocratic woman in 19th century France. She left her much older husband and under the pseudonym George Sand wrote successful novels which supported her and her children. She advocated equality with men in the conduct of personal affairs, and achieved notoriety with her liaisons with famous artists, among them Chopin, Alfred de Musset and Gustave Flaubert. She smoked in public and wore men’s clothes because they were more comfortable than the restrictive corset and layers of petticoats worn by the era’s fashionable women. The English novelist Mary Ann Evans wrote also under the psedonym George Eliot so her work, which was not the usual romance novels accepted from women, will be taken seriously. Her novels Adam Bede, Silas Marner. Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, etc, were huge commercial successes. In her personal affairs, like Dudevant, she defied the behavior codes prescribed for women. She was open about her affair with a married man, and later after his death, she married a man 20 years her junior. Both were shunned by the establishment but they prevailed.

These great lives are distinguished by clarity of vision, freedom, boldness in the pursuit of goals and unswerving focus in spite of seemingly insurmountable barrriers, including death. It is not an easy life, it is not a safe life, it is a life lived. It brings to mind a cliche, “It’s Not How Long You Live, Rather How Well You Live”.

How well does one live? Can ordinary people with ordinary talents aspire to lead a life of consequence? A child learning to walk falls repeatedly, but he senses the thrill of walking and the potential in his legs, so he becomes bold and single-minded in his purpose and ignores the falling, gets up and try again until he gets it right, yes! And don’t we all remember the joy, the exhilaration of being! Great lives are awesome, they touch us and they inspire us, but this child’s joy at mastering walking affects us just the same.

I observe around me and I see great lives being lived all the time. A friend loves her work, proud that she is competent in what she does and finds creative expression in individualizing her services to each client. Another confronted her fear and traveled alone as a challenge to her courage. Another quit a comfortable and well-paying job, to pursue her dream of owning her own restaurant. Another defied unwritten rules in Philippine high society about looking the other way of a prominent husband’s casual liaisons. She petitioned for annulment of her marriage and did not regret giving up her glittering hostess role.

From these observations, it’s clear to me that “must have someone”, and needing a companion has nothing to do with having a life well lived at all. Life is one’s own, and relationships must enrich and enliven that life. Living life well is not for settling, or for being safe. I’m surrounded by family and friends who let me be, they appreciate my talents, they live their own lives and share them with me, they inspire me and they care about me, and I care about them, I have freedom, I am excited to see what everyday brings, to meet someone new, to see how one is similar or different from me, how they can share new experiences with me, and I with them, to see a big world. I have charted my voyage, life calls. What I’m missing is what I’ve lost. Being with Johnny made me understand what Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese was all about. I will open myself to the possibility, and my friends will help, but he will not be a companion.