It was my birthday. There was a party. I got presents. The best and the most wonderful present was a kaleidoscope.
How magical. Every colour of the rainbow and every hue imaginable, jumbled, tumbled, scattered, reformed then rearranging themselves into fantastical patterns, symmetrical, ordered, pleasing. Awesome!
Disorder tamed and changed into order. A chaotic profusion of wild, disparate colours gathered and sequenced into beauty, a moving spectacle that you controlled simple by a turn, a little shake, the merest tremor and new patterns emerged.
Every different settling was new, surprising, and magical. There were enumerable moments of discovery filled with joy.
I have a new kaleidoscope. I am desperately twisting, turning, and shaking seeking its order. I want the chaos of my life in this kaleidoscope to fall seamlessly into place, into an order I can understand. My new kaleidoscope is faulty. No matter how I turn and shake and try to encourage it to form Tiffany glass creations of beauty and unity, I fail.
I can see bits and pieces scattering as they fall but they refuse to coalesce and, if a few do by chance, the result is disordered. It is a fusion of confusion. A hodgepodge of the past familiar intermingled with hiccups and blanks of the present. What is created is strange to me though the pieces are familiar. I have failed the course of making sense out of nonsense.
My Bert is my new kaleidoscope. The beautiful patterns we used to make together are now no more. He is a mirror that has lost its ability to reflect; a dancer without coordination.
As a child I wanted to go into the kaleidoscope to see how it worked. I wish I could go into my Bert’s brain to see how it is, see how it works and to see if there is anything I can do to fix it. Then again: “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
The Meander: I kept my childhood kaleidoscope for a long time. It delighted and entertained. Then I lost it. My Bert and I have known each other for 52 years and have been married for 50 years and counting. I suppose that is a long time. He still tries to delight and entertain. It is an effort. I have not lost him. Not yet.