Mindful-fun-da-mentals

Explorations of mind, paths, and life

A tiny murmur

Posted on November 17, 2008 - Filed Under self reflect

The weather has shifted to a frigid brisk temperature. This morning I could see my breath as I listened to the breeze press itself against the tops of the maple trees, watching ripples of brown and yellow wave down to me. The 15 minutes each morning that I take Gizmo out to trot and sniff about is godsend quiet time. On the days there happens to be a neighbor out, I chat briefly, then continue my walk with eyes closed, feeling the air on my face and the movement of the world around. I enjoy the solitude, nothing matters but the air and the sensation of the earth beneath my feet…. and yet, in that solitude I recognize a safety that I don’t know any other time.

I have become painfully aware of my disassociation with others. I teach, I talk, I socialize, I listen, I hear, I feel. All those things happen naturally and I fit in the world of mingling. As I wrapped up another Monday night of group facilitation, and walked to the car with a good friend of mine, we paused to hug each other goodnight. As the smell of her hair and soft skin touched me I suddenly noticed a desperate need to cling to her and beg to be free of the shackles that keep me hidden. I saw the simple beauty and pain of being safely close and yet safely distant. I reach out but at the moment that there is a connection it is as if a silky film invades the last connection of cells, unless… they are not looking. During our chatter I could hear and enjoy, but a tiny soulful murmur flickered within from the safety of the facade that is my presenting self. There is a part of me that just can’t feel with ease in the presence of another.

As I drove home I realized that my love of being submersed in the narratives of others, and all that it feels, is because I am so frozen away from my own feeling of self. They can talk about their pain, their joy, their anger. I have those, I know those… yet, being with another is just not permissive of “being.” “I” can be present in the experience of being the listener, the container for another person’s emotions. I live those feelings, like an emotional voyeur, experiencing sentiments through the narrative of another. And, I feel distinctly separate from myself. I hear me laugh or cry, but in the presence of another it doesn’t honor that tiny murmur of self that in my solitude feels safe and present. I tried hard to figure out what that means – why the deeper intimate connection with others just isn’t there. Why – as closeness emerges, I feel distinctly jarred by the shutting of doors in my soul? I fear that I will be found out – that someone will look at me one day and say, “where are you hiding?” and worse, I will have to really answer that question. I know my husband asks that of me. In very rare moments I find a connection so deeply felt that all I can do is cry with a profound pain and bliss that I don’t know how to move or change.

Why can’t I live and experience others with that depth? What have I learned about human connection that keeps me so deeply buried? I can speak of my life, my stories, my feelings & memories. All of it easy – it is my story. But it is not that cavernous space in which my tiny murmur resounds and fearfully begs to emerge and be present.

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