Recollection & Courage

I awoke with a punishing recollection: A winter day in Brooklyn, my coat peppered with snow as proof, in the distant past. Though my memory rarely serves me well, I’m positive this was close to a perfect day. However, if what I witness now is not mere cynicism but actually the truth, I may fear that these types of days are behind me.

But this recollection, cruel as it felt on awakening, is only punishment if I want to punish myself. I am no sufferer, though I can pretend to be. I could hide my face in trembling hands and fill myself with horror. I could mock the nature of things.

I could demand to be crippled and lame and demand others be as well. I could strip away all responsibility and accountability from life. I could play that I am unequipped for this world. I could pretend that real life is too much to bear. I could be pridefully indignant.

But I don’t want to lie.

I’m not after cheap happiness or exalted suffering, and to tell you that I’m tormented by hardship would be untrue. My conscience, forgetful as it can be, could not bear such a shadow. With sufficient moral courage, life and its many recollections can be transformed.

Courage is fraught with dreadful responsibility and may seem too much to bear, but it is no excuse to stay the waiting transformation. An idle feeling is not a warrant to stifle the soul.