“Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.” — Kahlil Gibran
I looked back at who I quote the most on the Chalkboard. Billy Shakes, Hemingway, Whitman, Fitzgerald, Churchill, Maya Angelou, Woody Hayes, Reagan, Yeats and now Kahlil Gibran joins the top shelf. The Lebanese poet knew his way around a metaphor, and today’s is one worth parking on for a while.
Sadness as a wall, not a destination and not a dead end. A temporary barrier. When you are standing in front of it, you can’t see anything but the bricks. The weight of it feels permanent, but Gibran’s telling us to remember that there are gardens on both sides.
Those gardens?
They could be the seasons of our lives. Joy before, joy ahead, separated by a stretch of dirt you’ve got to walk through.
Or maybe Gibran’s talking bigger... this life and the next one, separated by the wall we call death. Either way, the metaphor sticks: sadness deepens the roots so the joy blooms higher. You can’t appreciate one without knowing the other.
I figured out life got easier when I finally understood the difference between metaphors and similes, irony and hyperbole, oxymorons and analogies. Words are tools and Gibran shows us how to use them without wasting any.
Since it is hump day, maybe this one hits harder. The middle of the week, staring at the wall, wondering if the weekend is worth the grind. However, there is always another garden on the other side, even if you’ve got to dig your way through to get there.
I threw a little Greek into the grabber section for the person who sent me those ungodly emails yesterday. “DimmÃtte impio.” Roughly translated: Be gone, wicked one.
Now let’s climb the wall and find something astonishing on the other side.
