Today I was getting a ride home from a football game, I was cantankerous, tired, and achy. It wasn't such a great day. Then, a catalyst, like so many other times in my life, it sparked something. Something big, and beautiful, and provoking. I would like to say to you that I am deep and philosophical, but I'm really just like the rest of you. I'm a sponge, sopping up the mess in the universe and just trying to make sense out of it. We all do. I'd like to say that what I think sets me apart, but it doesn't.
A group of friends met another of their number walking home after the football game. One member says "Hey, what are you doing alone at night?" "Walking to... (I didn't hear this part)" "Oh, well, be safe!" "I'm always safe." This made me think about two things. How we didn't hear anyone wish another safety anymore. We sort of assume that with our cell phones and police cars we are protected. Isolated from incident. In ways it's amazing are possible, sometimes making the world smaller isolates us not from incident, but from each other. I was shocked, really, to hear someone wanted a friend to be safe. Sure we all think it deep down, but like so many things it remains locked, in the cellar. Like a Christmas decoration from ten years ago, or like a rotary dial telephone. I crave this type of community. To wish people well, to sincerely mean it. I want to live in a house where I don't ever lock my door, because someone will stop in to see how I am, to see how they are. To debate, love, and commune with each other. I want my food and my bed to be theirs. I don't ever want friends to have to call before they feel as if they are welcome.
Community is one of those things that has died in the past century. How many of you actually know the names of their neighbors? How old they are? What they do for a living? Where they live? This would have been common place once upon a time. How many people actually wonder how the person they live next to is doing? It's a travesty this kind of living is gone, it is desperately needed. Especially today, where face-to-face communication is dead. The art of conversation is practically mummified. We need this.
I know I would like someone I live near to actually talk to me every once in a while. Don't you? Don't you crave it like a pregnant woman craves pickles and chocolate?
Then another. The latter part of the conversation. "I'm always safe." Are you really? I'm not saying to go out and be paranoid of taking one step outside your door, but are you really always safe? No. You're not. You're never "safe". But, who would want to be? Do we sincerely need to pretend that we are that powerful? It's like, we cannot show weakness, we cannot be vulnerable, even when we really are. We can't show our flaws, the cracks in our skin, the scars on our feet and callouses on our eyes. Haven't you ever gotten sick of answering "Good" to "How are you"? Ever wanted to wipe off the greasepaint before the curtain went down? I have.
Our weaknesses make us. Those things that make us cry, that break our hearts, are so important to us. For a heart that cannot break is hardly a heart at all. In the book Beloved Paul D says he has a tobacco tin, rusted shut, where his red beating heart used to be from all of his hardships. Never, ever, let your heart become a tobacco tin. I'm not saying to be a doormat, I'm saying that hurting and feeling is so much better than being numb. I always hurt when I hear people say they will never trust again. They are missing out on so much. Love will hurt you, any degree of it can kill you. Water makes it so you can live. It can also kill you. Love is this essential to life.
I urge you, do not be afraid of what breaks your heart, it is what defines you. Don't stop feeling. Fight to feel. Battle to be human. When you are numb, when your heart is so broken it cannot break for anything, not even the right reasons anymore, fight to feel. Pick a piece of carpet that feels right, work the grooves in between the threads, and pull yourself out of the space between the carpet and the floor. You are worth so much more than numbness. You are worth the pain. Fight for it. We're all behind you.
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it's a rare person who could tell me that and expect me to believe them.
ReplyDeleteheard it many times but never from anyone willing to add the "we're all behind you" part and mean it. you and yours do, and I am grateful. that makes you rare, which means I believe you and cherish you all the more.
and you'll all be as safe as a sick boy with a shotgun can make you as long as I'm nearby. ;-)