I’m back home.
I brought back a nasty cold, several books, a bunch of slides and a massively expanded heart which has also been healed and nurtured in some very unexpected ways by more than one person, and by people who are, who have been, all some of the most important people in my life. Who remain so still, and all of whom I now can see will become ever more important.
This was one of those journeys which, alas, while I’d love to — and in so many ways need to — write about everything that happened with it, I can only do so in solitude.
Really, times like this are a painful irony of having writing be your art (in my case, one of your arts, but all the same). So often, the experiences which most inspire you, which you so badly want to express in words and share with others are exactly those which you cannot share without breaking trust and without putting a kibbosh on continuing. I can be more vague or nonspecific with visual art or with music, particularly given the way that I write and how literal and personal a writer I am. Were I to write about the last week, I know I would be unable to do so without exposing parts of people they took a risk to make vulnerable to me, that my attempts to honor what they shared with me, gave to me, what I gave to them, would have the opposite effect. Rather than expressing a reverence for the intimacy I was given, I’d wind up betraying it.
That given, what I can say is that I had life-changing, consciousness-changing, heart-changing experiences in this last week, at a level I was in no way expecting. I came home with things, feelings, communions which I know will change both the course of my life, my closest relationships and the way I experience myself from here on out in several ways: it is both terrifying and comforting all at once. Coming back home, far more than the contents of my suitcase was increased: I feel amplified, I feel at peace, I feel inspired, I feel connected in places and with people where I have wanted that connection so much but had barriers we could not seem to be rid of which now appear to be gone. Having that happen with three different, massively important people — and two more additional people, myself and then Mark — is a gift that, even if I felt able to put it into words, I’m not sure words could even begin to express.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Whew. I know you do not say lightly, “life-changing, consciousness-changing, heart-changing experiences” and somehow feel tremendously heartened myself.
Examining the reasons for privacy interest me and make me wonder if all experience is not just an open part of our commons. As humans, we’ve had to decree what is the Commons. Other animals have invented no such duplicity, to my knowledge. I think we continue together, whether we see it or not.
That said, I respect your compassionate thinking and sense of trustworthiness.
All your posts are appreciated, Heather.