It will make you a child again, if only for a moment…
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A few weeks ago, I was walking downtown when a young homeless guy seated under a tree was asking passers-by if he was really there. “Do I exist? Do you see me?” As far as I could tell, no one acknowledged him. I was in the right mood, smiled, nodded, and said, “Yes,” as I carried on. He hollered, rather cheerfully, “Thank you for the beautiful smile!” at my back.
The exchange reminded me of a book I read probably ten years ago, Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, in which a man saves the life of a street urchin and enters the shady world of the underground, where his mere act of acknowledging her presence obliterated him from the sight of most Londoners. It further got me thinking about my own behavior. I do not always see the homeless man because that would make me…complicit, responsible, disappear into his world? If I don’t see it, I can protect myself. That pain there, that violence, that poverty, with eyes averted, I will not feel it. It or he or she will not touch me, will not become an albatross about my neck. I can move on with a wink and a smile, as if it never happened.
Then, a couple of nights ago, I was reading the work of Pema Chodron (yup, still at it), and she said, “Compassion practice…involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion.”
Well, shit, that’s exactly my modus operandi. Going to scary places, especially my own, feeling reviled, fleeing or shutting down. The truth is, life is ugly and difficult sometimes, even when it is so very grand, those mountains and molehills that appear out of the ether. What to do? As Supertramp would say, “Take the long way home.”
So I did, in my very Colleen way. I took a meandering path through the pain of others’ lives to get me closer to tackling my own and the everyday, trembling with fear, but without aversion. I watched a fil-um I thought I never ever would, never ever could, Hunger, with my man-crush Michael Fassbender. It details the conditions at Long Kesh prison and the last days of Bobby Sands. Good god friends, it was horrible. Ugly, cruel, vicious, and incredibly sad, no matter which side you take, and I will do no such thing. That was not my intention.
My point was to take it all in, not avert my eyes, as much and as often as I sincerely wished it, and breath it in and out, steady and even. And I did, through the fear of car bombs, men being beaten to within an inch of their lives, violently shot, and the hunger and waste of a beautiful man’s body. I breathed and sighed and wept and opened my heart w i d e.
I did it and can do it with whatever wretched refuse I encounter. The trick now is to remember and have patience.
Tags: Movies
An old love visited me in a dream recently and is now happily ensconced in my conscious, walking beside me, gazing across a crowded room, and every once in a while, if I listen very closely, he whispers something in my ear, though I don’t understand the words.
The hubster and I talked about it (Yup, he’s that cool), how life is that way. The thousand million ways we are bound, six degrees or less, by cables capable of sustaining bridges, others fine filaments scarcely visible to the eye. But each wraps around us every day or for a solitary moment at the most unusual of times, coming in like a flood, in the flesh or the place of dreams, taking up residence, bringing gifts, and sometimes fleeing before we have the chance to ask, Why? My Nana a story, my Aunt Mary a shamrock, my Grandma Frances a scent at the supermarket, my friend Dionne a certain consistency of ice.
Thinking about Joel made me incredibly happy, that we met at just the right moment in our lives, and shared something beautiful, something worth remembering, though not in complete detail. Is that the reason for the visit? So I can sketch the full picture, nuance, light, and shadow, of our time together and embroider it on my heart? Maybe, maybe not, only time will tell.
Hello dear readers,
How are you? Wrapped up, warm and wonderful, I hope. I am cold, despite a multitude of layers and a hat on my head. And busy, writing, revising my novel, spending days in a flurry of words and fleeting thoughts. It’s been rather lovely and satisfying, though all consuming, too.
The workers are done, the last out on Friday, and the quiet’s been blissful. No more banging or wondering when someone will arrive. No new dust being scattered by labor either, though plenty of the old dust is still getting kicked around. I’m thinking we’ll have one of those furnace cleaners come after the new year, and then we will paint the basement, too, so very, very many gallons.
I’ve still not hung the pictures in the bathroom, nor decorated our house for the holidays, save two candles and a festive plaid cloth on the dining room table. To be honest, I don’t really miss it. I’m just so happy for quiet and grateful to get things done, that it doesn’t seem to matter.
In the evenings, after my mind is spent, and I’ve made some sort of soup for dinner, last night was possibly the best fish chowder, and the night before minestrone, I settle in on the sofa, knit, and watch movies. It’s about all my little brain wants or can handle. The hubster plays the piano (he’s learning music from Amelie), types away on his very old Commodore-64 in his new man-cave, or sits with me, a cat on his lap and mine.
It’s a wonderful life, sometimes busy and hectic, but mostly exactly what we want, and always good, lovely, and fine.
