Friday 15 January 2010

Clearing (with too many metaphors)




The snow is melting, almost clear this morning after heavy rain, and there’s a mirror-image process in myself.

A break from work usually means travel, so the diversion of a new, or at least less familiar, place stops me plunging deep into the realisation of my own aimlessness and loneliness. This time, I didn’t go away, spent two weeks alone at home – needed the rest, but struggled with the void.

It’s taken a while to see a way out of the resultant fog, but I am, helped no doubt by a rested body. At the centre of the void, at the bottom of the hole, there isn’t nothing, but whatever’s rooted in the heart and survives on its own camel-hump: dreams, beauty, words and the astonishingly determined life-force that close-to-atheists like me cannot explain, but still experience.

The life-force is never stronger than in the face of death, and the death of a friend this week – not less raw and unbelievable for being long expected – makes me feel very sad, but very alive.

So, I guess it’s 'Onward!', as a buddhist monk I know is wont to say with alarming ferocity.

11 comments:

Zhoen said...

My sympathies for the loss of your friend.

Anonymous said...

Lovely photo.

Jean said...

Thanks Zhoen. I wish I could write more about her, but not my story to tell.

kurt said...

Thinking of you.

alembic said...

Like Kurt, I am thinking of you! Grief, loneliness, that sudden glimpse of the void, as you said, are all strange kindling for the life force, aren't' they?

Pam said...

Oh dear. I hope you're continuing to feel better.

That photo's like a Turner painting. Well, with traffic cones.

(Yes, I did sort of tell the student. I said something about BP being a Jes-you-it.)

Lucy said...

Bless you and good courage, Jean; so sorry for your loss.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry about your friend. My thoughts are with you.

Beth said...

Onward, indeed, Jean, but I'm very sorry about your friend.

Tamar said...

Yes, Jean - onward - always onward. We don't really have any other choice, do we?
Smiles and hugs from across the seas. So thankful for our friendship.

Pica said...

Hugs. Thinking of you.