Quiet

I tend to explain myself at great length. I loathe being misunderstood and misunderstanding is perhaps more common than understanding, especially in writing. Even face-to-face, it is difficult to make ourselves clear. So, the more the merrier.

But words don't work that way, do they? Words are symbols for thoughts and feelings and concepts that cannot be understood through words. Try defining love. Good luck. Using more of the damn things doesn't seem to clarify anything at all. When they don't obfuscate, they bore. Often both.

Yet I go on and on and on. Some part of me believes that the more words I use, I closer I may be to that breakthrough moment when what is going on inside my head matches what you perceive. I know better, but I can't seem to help myself.

No wonder the Vulcan mind meld (while also horrifying to contemplate) has a certain appeal. OK, then, there you have it, the inside of my head. Now that we have that out of the way....

I have been in conflict with many people to one degree or another several times in the past few weeks. Many of these are people I love. I have tried to make myself understood. And failed. Not utterly, of course. I may have communicated a fair portion of what I was thinking. But when we get into the realm of feeling and pure, unadulterated thought—fuhgidabowdit. Yet I keep trying. Try to express ooph. or ouch or kerwilikers in real words. Good luck. We hurt each other. We don't say what we mean because we can't.

This is the nature of poetry, isn't it? The poet says: this is what I intend to convey, and these words are the way I choose to do so. I may have no idea what exactly they mean and you may not think they mean anything even remotely similar to what I was thinking or feeling. Yet if my poem is good, it sends a message across the void. And you just might get it.

To wit:

Beannacht

("Blessing")

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

~ John O'Donohue ~

And we know what that means. Even if we don't. Know what I mean? I think I will try quiet.

Happiness is...

I struggle sometimes with an ill-defined sadness. Mostly I am a fairly cheerful guy, not a jump up and down type, but generally optimistic and hopeful. Then there are these other times.

I have written about this here before, so feel free to skip this entry if you have heard this already. I am writing mostly for my own benefit anyway, though I suspect most or all of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It can begin with a book, as it seems to have this time. It can begin with a slight, an offhand remark from someone, an unskillful remark of my own. It can begin anywhere. It can be exacerbated by an unintentional cruelty (I know they didn't mean to, but they hurt me when they did that), like this time. A movie can set me off. A poem. A death. A birth. Someone's success (which sometimes makes me feel like a failure).

And here's something strange: for years it has seemed clear to me that I must channel the sadness and anxiety of others, though I only feel it when it is particularly strong. And the holidays are terrible times for many people, even those who love it, times of anxiety and fear and trepidation. We don't talk about that much, but there is an undercurrent of real human suffering under all that holly and mistletoe. Ho, ho, fucking ho.

Not that I am a Grinch or a Scrooge. I love the tree and the presents, the wreath and the lights (mine are always up the day after Thanksgiving, rain or shine, and god, did it pour this year). I love the music and the visits and the cookies and cakes and pies and candy (until it gets to be just too much, then, ick). I love the true, deep, human feeling this time of year. Oh, shut up, you cynic. I know that this time of year is a commercial bloodletting. But it's more than that. There really is an inexplicable good will we practice (well, most of us) that is kinda hard to explain.

Yet the anxiety is there, too, if only the anticipation of Santa Claus or what might be under the tree. I remember that feeling of disappointment as a child, not that I didn't get what I wanted (I mostly did), but when it was all over, all of that counting on things, my belief in magic, in the end this only yielded stuff. Of course, I could never have expressed it in so many words back then, but the magic of Christmas always devolved to this pile of stuff that was not very magical at all. Welcome, treasured, wonderful. But no longer magic. And I wonder if that is not some of what the end of the season brings. And that I am feeling it on behalf of others.

And it's the first day of a new year. (As if the caterpillar or the crow knows the difference. And if it weren't for our ritualistic defining of time and practice of rituals, we wouldn't know it, either). It's the first day of a new year and it brings with it both new hope and a sense of futility. Because nothing really changes much.

I thought about writing down my anxieties and sadnesses today. I opened a file in my electronic notepad titled "Anxieties", just to see what was there. The list must have been made a year or so ago, but I didn't need to change much to update it for today. A tweak here and there. The same issues, the same problems, the same worries and concerns. Far from being depressing, though, it felt freeing. "Oh, yes", I thought, "having been happy most of the year and beginning from this place, my happiness must have mostly to do with how I deal with things, how I am in relationship to them. Much more so than the circumstances, which have, quite evidently, not changed much at all."

And so I set forth on another year.  I will turn 59 at some point in this one, will celebrate 35 years of marriage, and will have spent 25 years at my current employer. Someone I love very dearly (who shall remain nameless) will turn 60. I will carry on. I will thrive. I will open my heart. I will weep a bit (because it's sad around here, in case you hadn't noticed). I will crave and understand it as craving. I will hate and understand it as such. I will blame and rage and resent. I will do my level best not to create any more suffering in the world. And I will laugh. I will love. I will be.