Wednesday 17 December 2008

Iron in the soul


Wake from sporadic, uneasy sleep to darkness, and a longer stretch of dark, bitter days than there has been for years - the weather in London and in me, mutually reinforcing.


Yesterday I saw
for the first time in some months a friend I am particularly fond of. This year has been a journey beyond all hope of much human contact, into a cold and broken place of relentless work and loneliness. But still there can suddenly be this searing awareness of a loved person's particularity: the curve of face and body, animated by the curve of just that mind-set. Shocking. Better, perhaps - easier, certainly - if this too would leave. But that really would be as good as death.

Lest this sound too dramatic, it was, of course, the thought of a moment only - a moment of smiles and chat, at that - in the midst of a day of ordinariness. Ah, the quality of the ordinariness is the killer, not the moment's pain. The days will grow longer again.

4 comments:

Zhoen said...

And yet the sun continues to shine just on the other side, right there.


Frustrating that we are held up just out of the muck by loving friends.

Leon's current assignment said...

Perhaps we drink from the same cup, so much of this resonates. You've penned a beautiful description of individual process. Things are what they are. And there is no need for qualifiers.

As I said to someone the other day, sometimes I find the act of living--especially during times of suffering--requires the creation of a different story each day in order to get out of bed.

Transcending ordinariness.
Yes.

Anonymous said...

I hold the mug.
The tea is cold.
Looking at the screen.
Trying to find words.
Listening into myself
so that I can reach out.

What communication is this?
Transported across space with some time delay.

At the end of the session, the Zen master said: You will be returning to what is called the real world. Yet, some of you are more real to me here than you would be if we met out there.

Dale said...

(o)