“Therefore, I beg you to let me go my own way in loneliness for a while and devote myself to my studies, for it seems to me that having a wife and a house to govern will keep me from these things.”—Hermann Hesse, The Poet

Ouch, that one struck home.

At the relatively tender age of 22 I dropped out of school and if I could have communicated what was roiling me on the inside it would have been: “I beg you to let me go my own way in loneliness for a while and devote myself to my studies.” For that’s precisely what I did.

Little did I know that I would still be on that road ten, twenty, even thirty years later! I hadn’t read Hesse’s short fable The Poet at that time. If I had I wonder if I would have stuck with the program so to speak (but of course I would have.)

In the tale Han Fook, the aspiring poet in question, leaves his village, his family, and his bride-to-be “for a while” to pursue his vocation towards poetry under a wrinkled old master who abides in simplicity “at the source of the great river.” And how apt is that! Now and then Han balks and considers returning but instead retraces his steps and continues his mentorship. Finally, having learned to sing the eternal song residing in his own heart he returns to the village only to discover that his father and family and even his bride-to-be have all passed away. He has grown old and become the wrinkled old master himself!

And then there’s this line: “…for it seems to me that having a wife and a house to govern will keep me from these things.”

I sit here with a joyfully wistful smile on my face. For I was married and have a son and that line resonates and reverberates deeply in my soul, though claiming to have ‘governed a house’ in this day in age might be a stretch.

Well, the wife and house are gone and there are wrinkles on my face now, though I haven’t grown a straggly wizened old beard…

But here I am…

Serving up coffee and tea at the Omphalos Cafe…

Ain’t Life a gift!