In A Cat's Cradle

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Victorians did it best. When Rochester turns to little plain Jane Eyre and says,

'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now; it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.' 

 it's one of the truest things I have ever read about love and attachment. It was when I first read it over 12 years ago and it still holds today. When I met Mr Findingmoxie, this passage flared up in my consciousness, lighting up the dark like a match and I knew that bizarrely, for their isolation, the Bronte sisters knew what it was to love deeply. Through the years of long distance and even longer distance, I held this image of a string anchoring from mine to Mr Findingmoxie's heart. It would thin with each mile it was stretched and it would quiver with the motion and roar of that sea that separated us. And oh, how it would ache. But, it never snapped or grew too weak to hold. And one day, at last, I followed it across the sea. 

We have lived happily in London for the last 5 years and we have forged for ourselves a warm and lovely hidey-hole in this ever-changing city. But, as all things change, we decided to move to back to the States and give the other side of our lives a chance at growth. And in this long summer of goodbyes, I have realized that there is not just one string from my heart to his, but rather, many strings branching from my heart to the supports of our life. Strings for my in-laws, my former CATS, my Lit friends, Mr Findingmoxie's school friends, our road, our flat, my favorite London bridge and the long white nights of an English summer. And so I am held in a cat's cradle of deep connection, bound tightly to these supports. Bound and raised loft--rather like the carved figure on the prow of a great masted ship. And soon I will catch the wind and with the strength and grace of these strings, move further into 'light and life,' like Jane Eyre with her Rochester. You know, only more crowded with much loved people and places.