Oscar Wilde and I . . .

. . . would have gotten along beautifully. In real life. For life . . .

When I first saw him several years ago in the Dublin Writers Museum – a few feet away from Hotel St George,  the hotel at which I was staying, I had a sense of expansive familiarity from deep within. I knew a few details on his life and work prior to my visit to Ireland,  but I had apparently overlooked among many of his portrait images the one that caught my attention in that museum. Not the world-famed writer but my first love was sitting right before me (well, um, . . . a little above my high-heeled height, hanging inside a spectacular frame on the large wall, all by himself). The resemblance had taken me by surprise. So much so that now that I think back I must have merely circled around my own axis, missing out on many of the other writers. Making a decent effort not to allow my eyes gaze away, or better yet, gawk at him. And only at him.

Today, we are still together. Oscar Wilde and I, that is. While an actual acquaintance with one another has (. . . as you may have suspected) never materialized, our connectedness is and will be everlasting. Because in his view of life I found what I desire mine to be. In fact, I have been yearning to attain such a state of being for too long. But now, I have a strong sign of encouragement from him, in the form of clipped reading materials I have re-discovered from under the bad news-budget planner-notebook of mine. And so, I am tempted to repeat this unique talent’s words:

“I don’t want to earn my living; I want to live.”

The question remains: Did he really afford to live? Then I dare even a shakier question: Can I ever afford the same? My financial spreadsheets are not undergoing a shake off-your negative load-diet anytime soon, after all . . .

Maybe, I just have to have an alive being-to-a ghost-conference call with him next time I am in Dublin . . .

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