more on the keepers of quiet.

For some strange reason I believe that if I keep singing at my desk it’ll make it all better.

"Lean in close and speak to me low
Tell me things you want me to know
'Cause i want to be the one
You need to
Lean to
Speak to me low

Regretful it's the time of year for letting go
Wasting all my time 'cause you just tease me
Please leave me alone

Scared of the feeling of you coming home
I'm leaning out the open windows
Looking into the alley below
Rooftops black and the moon's hanging low

And the telephone wires
That carry the sound
Stretch across the sky
And under the ground

And i will be here
When you come back
And speak to me low
Speak to me low

I'll pretend that
It's okay
We'll just be friends
So the wires say"



.... I’m not entirely wrong here. It really does chill me out a little bit amongst the constant phone and call bells ringing, amongst the distrustful visitors that think I’m trying to make their life harder before I even open my mouth. The visitors that give me a hard time about our 2-people at a time-policy. Yeah, I made it up- I instilled this rule to make YOUR life harder. I’ve never met you, but I sure have it out for you.

"But i will be here
When you come back
And speak to me low
Speak to me low"

Ok, I’m done complaining about work. That’s not what I want to write about and that’s not what you want to read about. And truth be told, I don’t have much to complain about- this job acts as a constant reminder of how friggin lucky I am. No one in my family is a patient here. They are at home and they are healthy.


What I do want to talk about it Rainer Maria Rilke and this concept of “guardians of solitude.” As I sit here at my work desk, every word typed is a chore- CONSTANT interruption. I know it has taken you 5minutes to read this far, but it’s taken about a ½ hour to type, thanks to the phones. And like I said, I have NO intention of bitching about work, I want to write more about this Guardians of Solitude concept I read about in a Rilke poem, but right now all I can think about is how much I could use a guardian of solitude right now. Someone or something to swoop down, pick up each ringing distraction and let me write in peace. This sometimes happens thanks to my considerate co-workers and perhaps I’ve overlooked their importance at times, theses occasional keepers of quiet.

So, I guess I am intrigued by this concept- perhaps foolishly, but it’s a way of looking at relationships that I’ve never been able to employ until recently. I’ve historically wanted to “own” my partners and to know their deepest and darkest. I would strive to tie us together, disbelieving in the vast distances between us. I wanted to know what possessed their heart, the past lovers, friends, family, the first girl they kissed at recess. And these caverns of the heart haunted me because, as I know now and what I wished I would have known then, is that you will never know another person fully. And really, who would want to? What fun is taking the mystery out of everything? Plus, I couldn’t share all the dimensions of my being with another person- and I don’t want to. Will future lovers really want to know about the romantic night I spent with Noah or all the promises Mike and I made to each other? Do they want to hear that some of those connections still exist? Maybe they are hidden deep, maybe they are just under the surface, but I hold a lot of things sacred. I have a lot of love to keep and to share and this is what makes me human and whole.

Rilke realizes this. The key to a happy marriage is to appoint one another the guardian of each other’s solitude, to give license to keep these things quiet. To give one the ability to share and to not share. To trust the other to keep these caverns sacred and private, trusting them not to use these distances to hurt the another. To make the present priority. To give up control and let what will be, be.

I tried to dominate once, to perhaps, rob someone of their solitude and it ruined us. I didn’t trust him, and maybe that was somewhat sensible since in the end he wasn’t trustworthy. However, that doesn’t really matter. How he responded has nothing to do with me, it doesn’t affect the path I am on and what I am to learn. Being a liar is his cross to bear, not mine. Not allowing myself to be victimized or unable to trust again is what I need to focus on. What stands out about the relationship is how I acted, how I can be better in the future and in the future I ‘aint going to hold on to the tail of anyone’s kite. I’m not going to hold onto anyone’s tail anymore. It’s not worth it.

What makes a happy marriage is living your life and letting the other person live theirs. It doesn’t involve fear, fear of losing them to another person or a grand new adventure. That’s life and we should be glad when the person that means the most to us can fly. Sure it’s sad when it doesn’t involve us, but we can’t let that fear keep the other caged.


What matters is that for right now we’re here together and we can be happy. We can and should give each other the world, not because it’s forced, but because we want to.

Anyway, another reason I’ve been so obsessed with this Rilke poem is because I would sort of like to write a zine based on my interpretation of what it means to be a “guardian of solitude” – and give examples of guardians in my life. Or people that were lousy guardians or potential guardians that I would like to see come into my life in the future. I think it would be an interesting writing exercise and might bring some overlooked people into the light as well as help me see the flaws in past relationships.