The Wake

I put on the Madre Deus album, Existir, and emotion that has been brimming strikes me head on. The rain that falls grey and lush around my cozy kitchen as I cook and cook and cook, my children playing, arguing, running, jumping, shouting, and eating... all of it mirrors moments a year ago and beyond. What have I learned? Where am I now?


I have learned that I will never truly know another creature, never understand completely their perspective -- their whole being that gives and receives. This alone will inspire me in learning compassion, the fact that I can never assume for a moment that I understand. Track nine plays and I fall to the floor on my knees in tears. The children and the dog come to my rescue, but I do not want to be rescued. It is my work now to toss adrift. I ask them to go, and they do. A year ago, two years, they would not have come. They saw me cry too often then. They accepted my sadness without fear.

I am engaged in my life, my work. This has not changed from then to now. The way is easier now, gentler. But I have not forgotten what I learned then. There is no high, no singular love that I can believe in with fierce or trusting care. There is no falling in or out of love. There is only my care in the moment directed to nurture the world around me, or at this moment, the woman I embody here on the kitchen floor, rocking. Opening slowly, I bare my heart to the world -- my kitchen, the backyard pond, the garden. Opening myself to mourning, I am moved by the enormous energy of loveinsadness that flows through, beyond, and around me. I rest in the wake.

This is not a sadness about any one person, incident or accident. It is a formal recognition of the loss of innocence, so beautiful a sacrifice. It is a celebration of the precious gift this loss has offered me -- a peace and acceptance beyond words. No regret, no bitterness.

But waves on waves of sadness are mine at times when all is water falling, and my world is so quiet the boat may be felt. Perhaps the moon sings its song, and I listen. Perhaps a thousand invisible forces collide and I am halted in the tracks of my daily work to pay homage.

I do not know. But here I am.