Bending
Buildings and bridges are made to bend in the wind...
All that steel and stone is no match for the air, my friend
What doesn't bend, breaks.
-Ani Difranco
Her words, heard for the hundredth time, hit home. I am learning to bend. Heart breaks and I mend and I learn to bend in the wind. I think, "To hold tight," but it's not the grip that frees me, it's to fall as a cat can, or Timber--loose, continuing. These water droplets, melting snow. Falling easy down to become snow melt and the river rushing.
The mind...is that what can grip even a toddler as she falls? Fear...Timber does feel it sometimes. He feels startled, unsure. Certainly it is thoughts that lead me to grip and shudder about the unknown. In the past few years, I've moved closer to knowing that we live in mystery. To wisening it. To knowing not knowing. It's hard to articulate so I invent words. I remember we have no control.
There is sadness in my remembering. Where is the joy? The Buddha was a happy man, wasn't he? Perhaps that's Western mumbo. There's some way I want to remember and move on. I'm tired of remembering, again and again, that I bend to survive. That to bend is a necessity of being alive. I bend to live.
I feel tired of the sadness that accompanies the remembering. If I feel sad, is it true surrender? I am walking down an alley and come to a brick wall. It's grey and thick and I can see the sky over top. What comes next? Acceptance. I don't believe I know how to do that today, not in some final way. Final--to not forget and have to remember again. Ha! I laugh because I have the idea that this process is life, too.
Which means that bending and remembering are synonymous. I remember. I bend. We have a flag in our garden that says "Remember." I like to hook into it with my eyes when I'm out there in the soil. I'd share a photo, but these days the flag is battered and grey from the wind. There's a feng shui assignment if I've ever heard one.
To be continued...
Kate
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