An Underground River of Loneliness
A yellow phone similar to this one – the wall version – hung in my kitchen for more than twenty years. In the age of invention, the wall model could be fitted with an extra long cord that stretched through the doorway allowing dish washing, eyes on kids, and baby wrangling—all while in conversation.
Conversation – Communication – Connection
Knowing myself has been a lifelong project. If asked, I would say that I am in tune with what I am feeling; in the land of grief, not so much.
Grief continually surprises me.
Last week I replied to a text from a friend and then, thinking she was at home, I decided to call her.
Admittedly, I am a regular whiner about the delays in technological conversations via text, WhatsApp, and other cell phone options. More than just preferring, I often “long for” the sound of the human voice and the artful dance of back and forth in “real” conversations.
Between the time of her message and my reply she picked up another call and was unable to answer.
I was surprised at a feeling of resentment that rose up in me. After texting her the information that I was going to relay by voice I added, “You never answer your phone.”
The words had a hard edge that surprised me. I was not consciously aware of feelings running beneath the surface. Why am I asleep to my needs?
She called me back, expressing some friendly irritation that is part of the banter of our normal way of being. During our conversation I awakened.
I think I’m lonely.
How is it that I did not recognize the funky feelings surrounding me as loneliness?
Dan Neff was an extrovert in spades. When he needed to renew himself he needed a crowd; the energy of people filled him up. Conversely, when depleted, I need to be alone.
Have I lost touch with who I am?
Who am I?
The conversation was pure gift.
Voice in real time
Response
Clarification
Silence
Laughter
all the ingredients of real-time conversation were like medicine for my soul.
Grief humbles me.
Grief has its own glasses.
Grief adds a new layer for me to tune into my life.
Grief is the underground river that presses at the banks of my life, pouring beyond the boundaries I put up in order to live.
The poet’s voice brings me back to center.
Hidden hands come to soothe.
May its medicine refresh all who arrive to this page.
Keep going.
BEANNACHT
—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 gray window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
—When the canvas frays
in the curach of thought
and a strain 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.
Beannacht by John O’Donohue
