On the importance of accepting the life you are leading

My ex-wife, Aleesha, came to me yesterday and, with a dismal and forlorn gaze in her eyes abruptly spat it out: "Daniel, my life is shit".  I kind of got caught unawares and just gave her a warm hug, then I just said, "welcome to my world".

Let's put this clear from the very beginning, my life has been shit since I have any glimpse of recollection.  Put other words, my life has ALWAYS been shit.  Maybe that's the reason why I decided to become both a Teacher and a Poet.  But that's a long story, and long stories are to be told little by little.

Therefore, just now I wanted to share with you all one more revelation, this time in the shape of a poem.  I hope you enjoy and get some wisdom out of it.  This is how it goes...

Absurd thing that really really matters nº 9

Accept your life even if it sucks, after all is the only life you have...

THE STORY SO FAR

by Daniel Winterbottom, poet of the things that matter

for my ex-wife Aleesha, who came from Indonesia to share a new light with me

This is my story so far,

this is my life,

utterly normal,

common, ugly and sad,

my life,

just that,

nothing special or exciting,

nothing to write home about,

nothing, really, worth mentioning,

a dull, regular-size, pathetic life,

my life,

my story,

this is what and who I am,

this is it,

trust me,

there is nothing else behind,

just a normal, common life,

my life,

my story,

my dearest heart of hearts,

and the rest is still unwritten

and it  may be not so common,

so utterly dismal,

but I couldn’t care less,

trust me,

it is not that I like what and who I am,

it is more simple than that,

it is that I am what and who I am,

just that,

and I write poems

and I drink beer

as I leave my past behind,

but what about you, bro?

would you care to tell me

the story of  your

common, sad, pathetic life

so far?

I lend you my ear,

as always,

and I’ll always lend you

my heart.

On the importance of being born into this world

I promise I am (almost) human...

I was born in Sligo a cold Winter night of 1973, I was born there because I didn’t have anything else to do or go that very night and therefore I found it appropriate to get born once and for all.  I was just wasting my time in the netherworld and thus I said to myself “you, wake up, and do something, have a life, get a god, learn to play the lute…) 

My father, the head honcho of a folksy band, was at the time in a gig in Galway but when he heard about my unexpected arrival, left his bass guitar and jumped into the car to get to the hospital asap.  My mother, a Spanish emigrant in the Emerald country since she was 21, was caught by surprise in her sleep.  She was pregnant, alright, but I was not suppose to come so soon, but, well, I just got bored and wanted to have my share of worldly experience just like everybody else.  I quickly made a few phone calls, got to talk with the big Dude up there and finally was given the go-ahead to start afresh in Ireland.  A wonderful country all in all, even today I do miss my land with all my heart.

That’s the way how I got to be born all of a sudden, how I was located into this crazy world of us.  And to be sincere, from my first minute on earth, I learnt how to be human the hard way, since I slipped out the Doctor’s hands and into de freezing floor in the twinkling of an eye.  Nice way to start, don’t you think? With a mighty bump on your head, a hideous red mountain-like bump just in the middle of your bald head.  Goodness me!  That was a superb ride into the unknown and the unknown was hard and menacing, I can tell you that much.

Therefore, I got to learn my first “absurd thing that really really matters”, which is:

Absurd thing that really really matters nº 8

Never hit your own head with anything hard.

The thing is that hard things hurt.  Soft things may hurt as well, that’s for sure, but they are inoffensive when compared to the hard stuff our material world is made of.  Have a go, take a feather and attack yourself viciously, so savagely as you might, you’ll see you’ll come out of the experience unscathed (other wise you are definitely a lost case to this world), but imagine you do the same with a sledgehammer.  I know it’s obvious…, but it seems that we never learn this lesson right.  We keep on banging our head onto the manifold surfaces of this hard reality we call “the outside world”.  

And into the bargain and which is even more important, this lesson applies as well to feelings. Didn’t you realise?  You should know by now, dude, you should really know.  Hard feelings hurt, soft feelings heal.  But we tend to have our hearts and minds choked to the brim with the hardest feelings we can treasure: hate, fear, anger, anxiety… 

At least I got this first lesson clear my very first minute on earth…, but I was too young to realise, of course, and was unable to remember this until I came, as well quite unexpectedly, into my 17^th birthday (one day I was 14 and just afterwards I was 17, missing all of a sudden the rest of my birthday presents, which was really a bore!!!).

But that is another story and today I do not have time to keep on going.  I’d better now stop my rambling; I have more serious concerns to deal with…

I’ll be back to you anon.