mother goose & co

Today, my sister asked me to read to her the story of Humpty Dumpty.

As I was reading I realized - be it by coincidence or by a quite striking dose of reality - that Humpty Dumpty and I would likely be the bestest of friends, were he only real enough for me to identify with.

He sat on a wall and by a most unfortunate turn of events, as fate would predictably have it, came crashing to the ground. His remnants lay scattered like broken glass about the ground, irreparable by even the combined efforts of all the King's horses and all the King's men.

Humpty Dumpty probably built that wall and sat on it because he was terrified of letting anyone in. Perhaps if he let someone in, it would disrupt his equilibrium. He would inevitably lose his balance, and in oblivion at the falling moment, blame himself for not sitting upright enough. Or maybe it would just make him feel as if his efforts in constructing the wall went to vain, in and beyond their entirety. The intruder would not even begin to imagine how many painstaking hours Humpty Dumpty had spent building his wall with the all too dependable mixture of mortar and tears. His hopes had already climbed the highest crags and leaped over gaping crevices. Was it so wrong for him to wish that his final product be resistant to wear and tear, bullets and bombs, thunder and lightning?

I understand Humpty's thought process - his path of logic and attempts at self-preservation. I find myself doing the exact same thing. I build up walls, swearing never to let anyone in, in fear of the past bearing its atrocious face, the ever so mocking flag of my own vulnerability. My walls are built so high that they tower with an almost ominous glare, as opposed to the protective purpose I had initially intended for them.

And with karma flanking me left and right, one day, the walls just crumble. With a few words, a look, a smile – anything even mildly suggestive of anything beyond nothing – they collapse. The burning embers recoil around what once were strapping walls, until only the putrid smell of grey ashes remains.

Time to rebuild again, I guess. Hopefully I can find the right proportions of mortar and tears so my walls serve more faithfully to their purpose this time around.