I think a lot about dying. Sometimes it really helps with living. It holds out its gifts. It says: “Remember me and don't look away. See me, so that you can see clearly what you've been given.
Sometimes I listen. When I do, all turns silent, all turns still. Nothing is being done – just a perception deep within that life is good but that it needs to be minded. Oddly, I sense that it's in the letting go of things that brings me closer to living out in the field of life's peacefulness; in the silence there. A particular silence where you, as you, doesn't exist. Where the small voice inside my head becomes mute, and “you" shuts down. I wonder if this is a form of dying, this shutting down awake. And then comes the laughter, at myself; at the trap I just placed myself into through my “wondering" and so, thinking again. Always thinking. Sigh... how hard to just “be" without myself in the room – thinking.
There's a lady I know who's dying. She knows this. She's been told. She's covered herself in it like the blankets of her bed that she's pulled up to her chin. And she's talking to me now, getting what she calls her “life" in order. She is animated and welcoming. One might even say happy. She is already halfway to knowing that the “life" she is speaking of getting in order isn't the real one. We're talking about details. What's your full name? What's your social insurance number? When were you born? Behind those details lies the full sweep of a sky of memories. I want to weep at the banality of the questions I'm asking, in the face of her graciousness in my company. She is stepping through my questions, placing each one to the side before stepping out onto a vast field underneath a monumental sky. She smiles when we part ways, and I want to tell her so very badly, before I leave, that I know she is not her answers.
The baby rabbit we found was no more than four inches long. We took it in, picked it up from the curbside like a fragile teacup, and stood dumb at how such vulnerability was right there in our hands, making everything out beyond it seem dangerous. We named it “bun-bun." We fed it from a bottle; formula, we were told, like a baby. We made it a home for recovery. When it could walk-hop we let it explore the basement carpet. Each morning we checked in on bun-bun and hoped he or she would be waiting for the hello we desperately wanted to give. Bun-bun grew a little. Became stronger it seemed. And then – not. We fretted over its decline. How the upward swing of strength and determination suddenly took its downward turn into weakness and finally, release. We buried bun-bun in the garden. A week later I read how bunnies, when that frail and that young – need constant companionship and contact with the mother's body. Our “lives" took us away from that.
On occasion I'm deeply aware of myself and what I'm doing. I mean, I notice myself walking, notice myself standing with someone on the street, talking. Like a movie. I see myself from over there. When I'm with another person, I can feel so grateful for them. The conversation. The sense of sharing time, sharing happenings, sharing an emotion – no matter what it is. Extending things beyond myself, my small family, my work, my world. Inclusion. The time is short-lived but re-energizing. Some invisible wall expands and gives me room to see the wider perspective. That's the visual equivalent to stopping and really listening. A songbird suddenly heard. Hear it sing and suddenly all else falls away, except that one-of-a-kind trill. The power of focus. The one sound, within a cacophony of sounds we think of as noise. I pull at the threads of what I'm hearing, to unravel it. I focus on each sound individually; the siren in the distance, the splash of a wheel in the puddle, the leaves attempting to free themselves in the wind but bound to the tree, a distant dog barking, the footstep behind me walking in the same direction, keeping pace, neither louder, nor softer than my own...
… where are they going? Where am I going? Am I wandering aimlessly right now through a world I cannot see or hear properly? Look up, I remind myself. Look up. Leave the sidewalk alone. The sky is immense. See it and listen to all that fills it. It's breathing us in and out, in and out. We come. We go. We catch glimpses of our wonder. Signs of this planets' gifted nature. But still, for me... nothing as gracious, nothing so sweet, nothing so imperceptibly grand as a smile on the face, before our last goodbye.
OUT IN THE FIELD
