All the while #SOL2023

It’s been a while. And still, it feels like it’s not enough. Or, maybe I’m just avoiding. Maybe the fragments I’ve been gathering won’t be what is longed for. But, excuses aside — it’s been a while since I’ve completed any writing.

And while I haven’t finished anything, I have been observing and listening, sometimes scratching down phrases or quotations. I’ve been paying attention to the short messages, the questions from friends and former colleagues. Memories surfaced one morning and I stopped what I was doing to capture words in notes on my phone for later use:

Ghosts of the past flicker in and out of awareness. I recall the apartment garbage chute consuming artifacts – writing, letters, photos, trinkets of my past – force fed by a jealous boyfriend. I did not recognize shame’s presence in me then, and the ways that shedding connections to my own history would solidify our union and my invisibility.

More recently, a former student messaged me recounting our history together from her first day of grade 9 to graduation — the sharing of this historical memory, this unexpected ping from my phone, this shared experience brought me back to myself. I stopped, took a deep breath, and warmly smiled before I replied.

Words and memories shared can do that. But, for me right now, there are some words and memories which seem to scatter, flying this way and that, never landing, never grasping, so I leave them alone for a while.

And while I cannot find the words for myself, I give attention to the words of others — what I call close listening — for me, this is an act of love that need not be loud or obvious or grand. I listen and respond to the words and memories which are not my own.

Sometimes the quiet, elusive form of attention heals — a short text, the phrase of a question, the gentle way a message is carefully crafted can say, “ I see you. I feel for you. Share your suffering with me”.

Meanwhile questions in conversation, the delicate probes which come close to the wound, remind us of love; these words test the solidity of one’s state while the fiercer more direct questions might shake us into shared acknowledgment that we are not alone. There is a selflessness in the questions that reveal an interest, that show attention to the trajectory of our lives.

I’ve been entirely immersed in my life as a teacher until now. But that trajectory has shifted, and as I wait and hope for the words, the world carries on — school resumed without me. It might be a while before I am myself again and, in this retirement, find the words.