For example, the toaster needs to be cleaned, and taking it apart, the last screw loses its thread, and I can’t take the bottom off completely or put it back together. But it was my grandmother’s toaster, and I’m not ready to get another. But no one will fix it, and I can’t figure out how to. So I stop having toast for a month until I can accept it’s time to let it go. And somehow, though I feared I’d lose something dear, I strangely feel closer to my grandmother. Because it was never about the toaster.
Relationships are like this. There are times we can’t take them apart or put them back together, and we have to live in between until our dreams of relationship lose their thread. Then our sense of worth appears with the sudden realization after loss that we’re somehow closer to things anyway.
What I’m trying to say is that moving through the world is inevitably complicated, while being in the world by its nature is simple. When in the midst of complication, we’re asked to return to direct living, which means: to say what is true when it is true, and to hold things gently.
A Question to Walk With: In conversation with a friend or loved one, describe a special relationship you are in that is important to you, though it is flawed and complicated. What keeps you in this relationship?
This excerpt is from my new book, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living, published by Sounds True Nov 1, 2017.
*photo credit: Pixabay
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