Go Mama's comment on my last post made me spit tea across the kitchen. So damn funny.
I'm hearing you J. Hearing you. And the loneliness....I know it so well... But at the same time, I can't help but think how luxurious it would be to live in a lovely house, staring at the pond with plenty of silent time to hear my own thoughts and write with no interruptions. Call me crazy, but I could really use that alone time these days.
Wanna swap? Take my oversized determined to be right husband, interruption-a-minute child, and tackle this failing public schl system facing seriously shrinking budgets? For what it lacks in sq footage, my little shack comes with a sm backyd pond and plenty of cocktails...and we'd both be getting the no sex we've been having....
Thanks for the reminder, T. The grass on this side of the pond is pretty damn green. And I am grateful for my life. Most of the time I wouldn't trade it for anything. But then a spider appears or a bagel flames out in the toaster, and I imagine life would be easier if someone else were here, too. And some things would be. Others would not.
It's strange, that itch for something you can't quite name, the feeling something's lost when nothing is missing.
Rereading A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas this morning, these words jumped out at me.
Twenty years ago I asked a friend if he felt (as I did) a kind of chronic longing, a longing I wanted to identify. "Of course," he answered. We were having lunch by the pond at 59th Street, watching the ducks. The sun was out, the grass was thick and green, the ducks paddled around in the not very blue pond. I was between lives. "What is it?" I asked. "What is it we are longing for/" He thought a minute and said, "There isn't any it. There is just the longing for it." This sounded exactly right. Years later and a little wiser, I know what the longing was for: here is where I belong.
It's been a lifelong project, my search for the here where I belong.
7 comments:
I love Abigail Thomas. Not surprised you've found her as well.
I think the point of all of our searchings just might be that "here" where we belong is our very own selves.
Thank you so much for sharing your journey, dear one. You are not alone.
It's really true that there's no lonelier feeling than being with someone that does not truly "see" us. Still, although the grass is always greener, I want for you what you want for you. Whatever, and with whomever that is. That's what I want.
You belong to all of us. :) And we you.
Love you Jerri. Glad I was able to provide a spitting tea moment. Now I'm off to rattle some senators...
Love
I do hear you. It would be nice. But it is ourselves we seek, really. Interesting to think about right now, for me, where I am.
I loved that book. This reminds me I have to return it to Deb.
Oh that longing. I've been working hard to just recognize it when it arises and not try to sate it with consumption.
It's a disconnection from Source. The primal wound. The thing we are seeking. So close we can hardly see it. Only in glimpes for most of us.
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