bravery

From February 25th. A sharing in an online writing workshop. The following quote was offered as part of a longer series and this one that immediately spoke to me.

Susan Sontag on Buddhism:

One of the beautiful ideas in Buddhism is that if you are in fact at a point in your life where there is no suffering, then it is your duty to go and find some, to put yourself in contact with it. There are, as it were, duties about being human.

There’s an idea I want to describe and it crystallizes in my mind when I read this quote. Her words help to illuminate the very complicated feeling that might follow a tragedy, a trauma, or a loss. It helps me to understand the paradoxical longing I have for the tender period after; times in which I became/have become/am becoming —

a sponge

a portal

nothing

a pool

the water in the pool

quiet lake

the sad puddle

the face on the hotel pillow

the body on the operating table

the breath inside her

heart cracked open

actual tears

solid human form

available

It makes me understand why I go back into a place of potential sadness and why I’m not afraid, not always afraid, to be right there. We are porous and everything gets in — be careful.

Can we curate the finding of suffering when it’s not readily accessible? In the in-between times, can we allow ourselves to enjoy the calm before the next storm?

Well, here we are. February seems like a time away from time, an entire lifetime has already passed, all within this room. In February, if someone asked me how I was doing, I would answer pretty good, or, better actually and if they really asked me, like hands softly on my shoulders with eye contact and deep breath and listening stillness, I would say well, there is currently no tragedy happening and that’s pretty much all we can hope for, right? Right.

The suffering is here. The suffering will continue. This is the storm. Be brave.