With Things That Break

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The deeper the cut, the redder the blood. The deeper the experience, the richer the wisdom. It has always taken more time to reach the deep than the surface. And so it is with each other. It takes time to listen our way beyond the cuts into the depth of each other’s experience where the richness of living waits. This piece explores this mysterious physic of the soul.

WITH THINGS THAT BREAK

What matters bears entering more than once. This entering-more-than-once is a form of listening. It’s how leaves in fall offer a deeper color on rainy days. In that grayness, we look again and the undertones have a chance. I have a friend who moved to Victoria; that lush isle off the coast of Vancouver where winters seem long and dreary. In her third winter, someone born there pulled her aside and said, “You have to learn to love the rain. You have to spend more time wet. Then you’ll have different names for lazy squall and slanting mist. Then the rain, as much as the sun, will cause something in you to grow.” It’s the same with things that break our heart. Like learning to love the stories of elders who repeat themselves. You have to learn to love the slant of their rain. To take the time to sense what they can’t leave behind. With things that are new, we keep moving. With things that break, we circle back: repeating and renaming till we can find each other in the rain.

A Question to Walk With: Tell the story of someone you know and how they have endured being broken. What have you learned from their journey?