0 – Every Unknown Is the Same Unknown
– The decision is hard enough, she said, without my friends telling me I am making a mistake, that a woman shouldn’t give up her dreams for a man.
There are the words that we speak, that make sound from thought; and there is the timbre of the voice that carries other, deeper truth.
– And it’s not just him. There is so much I would be missing, the last months here. This has been a home to me. I’d miss my little cabin, my friends preparing for graduation, springtime on the hill…
As well as a generous relationship. I understood what her friends were saying; still it felt partial, the head veiling the heart. I thought, they aren’t saying what they are saying. I felt a little anguish inside, as I tasted their words, and swallowed them. I’d taken a drop poison.
How many have offered me that glass? You can’t take a guitar on your travels; it will be stolen. You can’t work a farm like this; the land is iron, do you hear me, iron. You can’t eat this because of this disease, that because of that modification, you can’t you can’t you can’t.
There is truth that carries in the timbre of the voice, which is a different truth. Instead of shouting you can’t, it cries softly, heart-breakingly, I can’t. I want to. I can’t.
~
I am flying on a large airliner, somewhere over the North Atlantic, at thirty-seven thousand feet. Behind me is what I know. Ahead of me is what I trust. There is no other direction, and as far as I am concerned, no other attitude possible.
No matter where you put your thoughts, if it is an honest appraisal, your mind must be daunted. Mind is limited, and fit to be tied. Is it the next job, the next house, the next child, the next lover, the next work of art? Is it the next malady, the next snowstorm, the next economic crisis, the next time your Government commits torture, the next corruption of democracy? It is what comes in the night when you can’t sleep. It is what you can’t imagine ever happening between you, that happens, but not in the form you fear, rather the form that challenges you to grow. It is that absolute, irrefutable certainty of decline.
Or is it the child’s smile, the sunrise that faithfully returns (it isn’t faithful; it brings me faith), the memory of younger summers, the taste of a new fruit or new word, the thrill of touch.
Whether it is the loss of a grandparent or parent or sibling or spouse, or a more delible departure, the dissipation of an unrealistic hope, a lost keepsake, a fading picture: it doesn’t matter. One unknown is the same as every other unknown, and since they are so common (I would recommend: constant), we have the delightful and poignant opportunity to learn what unknown feels like. Yes, I can wince and flinch and shy away – I do – but since the oncoming New will not be denied, we can stand up tall as possible and firmly as possible and take the blow. We will get through it. We always do.
The little bit of knowledge gained pushed back the darkness, is our salvation. I can’t avoid it, I can’t change it, but I certainly can navigate it and, with each navigation, I am stronger, surer and more capable.
~
I could never support the girls’ opinions in any case. I make more decisions for the fabric of community and relationship than I ever did for the pragmatism of safety. My son and daughter were born, and my Brazilian me was discovered, because I followed an opening heart to years with their mother, and life in a larger world. I am seven miles above the ocean following the wisdom of the heart again, to create a home away from home, a home bigger than home, with my bright light, the excellent woman who chose this path with me.
What could I say? Of course there have been stumblings, and scars. But with no regrets other than these few compassionate backward glances, to a boy then a young man, to an adult, to a husband, to a father, who faces the unknown with varied success, but consistent courage.
Thanks to the past. Here’s to the future.
“Generations” by Cyril Berthault-Jacquier @ DeviantArt.com