Burial and baptism
Two months since I last set word to the page. Life is not lived in words, but on the path where words are collected; where, if we speak of what we have seen, the story is written either in the heart and mind of the listener, or in the eye and inner sense of the reader. Sometimes I miss my time with the page, as the story is unfolding. There is a quietness you find in a record, as though counting and recounting your steps you are affirming “Yes, I have wandered here; I have wandered there.” In the telling there is acceptance of all that had gone before, the decisions made wise and unwise, the responses given well-considered or misspoken; whatever had been done was done with the best attempt that could be made at it. And the results…? We humans cast a hopeful eye to health that never ends, but historical forces and our own flagging powers teach us better. Today’s success must stand for everything: tomorrow’s challenge will face a new self, amen.
Since I last set word to page, my father’s sister left this life. It is enough, for a period of silence, to follow kin’s departure at a distance, while bound to it by birth and by relationship. I have considered the loss of someone close to you a stone fallen into still water: you see it tumble through invisible currents, see its rough-cut facets flash then dull then quickly as gravity receives it disappear into a dark where you dare not follow. Even were the pebble bright as ivory, the deep where our sun’s light cannot reach enfolds it in that bottomless embrace to which it must be commended.
We are not far from that embrace. Here on the thinnest surface of that sea, where our little boats waver and collect in comfort and security, the fall of that one small stone makes the water’s mirror a circular symphony, a ripple of sorrow and of sympathy that washes outward from the fallen center, a wave that drenches those nearest by, those that stretch their hands as if to retrieve it, or to let it softly down in its decline: so soft: even the whispered sound of the stone’s reentry is hushed, and the eyes of those who watch at the event-horizon of a death, watch and wonder, wonder at the fate of all things alive, at their own beautiful, poignant path; and the tears course down in counterpoint, a perfect symmetry of sound and sight, points of liquid light that follow the trail of silence to its end.
The ring of loss that paints itself upon the world’s surface seems to expand without breaking. A wave emanating out from its epicenter increases impossibly, while its amplitude declines, so that each ear hears a further echo, a more distant horn, the reflection of a reflection of a volley at arms, rain in lieu of a handful of earth, wind at the window with winter in its gasp, bloodless moonlight after 3am, a lover waking with a cough then asleep again, a baby’s cry, a dream. I watched my father, older now, lift himself up yet again, and travel to a distant desert, to bid his sister passage, his other sister courage, and those left on the shore’s sifting sands to stand as best they can.
There are other losses.
I have similarly watched the play of human consequence, the result of fragile leadership, dollars turned to bullets and poured out on the sand, the collapse of a childish, fearful reason as rule of land. Of course our actions came back to name us – they always do – years of living with no thought (or worse, denial) of death, too afraid to look loss in the eye, and not to meet its gaze, allowing the hands, ignored, to slide up to our throat, and take from our pockets and from our person whatever value it desired: it is unfortunate, and altogether common, to live under unwise rule. Because we have been that rule ourselves, made similar wanton choices for our steps, we know too well the turn of the road, the bandit’s band, the lessening of our wealth, the rape of land, and the return by forceful means to another more sober and wearied stand.
Mirrored in that frantic decline, I watched the desire to disburden myself of a similar choice of living large. A marriage failed, dividing not only capital, but also the ability to stand together, halving the energy needed to face this life’s demands. And the home we built on a dream (a dream that was larger than two could quite maintain) became a cavernous dwelling that could have held two times what we were; three times; more. We polish the floors, repair the sagging beams, and offer up this dream to any taker. “A dream! Your dream! (I wish to lay it down, to rest, will you pick it up, allow me to walk lightly?)” At each step forward, the disaster of our banks took two steps back. At each chance for selling, the markets like waves of loss crashed on household shores, and this little boat that we had built, that I was sailing now alone, seemed to find no harbor, so sand, no beacon, only perhaps to stand off some arrival until that storm should break (at last!) and let me in.
There is much to live, and few words tonight to tell it. I just found my voice again, after listening for too long. The house sold. My parents flew from the Midwest to help me move my goods: still lifting things for their son, when he has long been a man. I live within shouting distance of a few dreamers; my belongings are fewer, which is to my liking, though the process of shedding weight is not often a comfort.
“Hold tight to people, and not to things!” Things hold you tight, and don’t let go. Better embrace what has warmth, and leave what is stone to be collected by earth’s pull.
What else has ended? What else has just begun?
A single day of silence recognizes a burial, celebrates a baptism.
