The title of a book I once read back in my thirties has embedded itself in my brain and comes to me at odd times. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, written by Milan Kundera, a Czechoslovakian author. The title intrigued me. A phrase with three seemingly unconnected words, each one familiar and understandable in an everyday kind of way, but taken together I feel, becomes a journey of contemplation and a quest for exploring the great mysteries. It may be why some people join convents or monasteries or are endlessly moving, searching for answers. I remember W.Somerset Maugham’s story “The Razor’s Edge” - a life spent examining a life, what it can mean to love, to be aware, to be an active participant in this one moment of this one life.
These internal quests into the mysteries require courage and I often fail or become exhausted with all the thinking. It’s as though the answer is right there on the tip of my tongue. Each discovery reveals more questions. Sometimes I just curl up and read a book, or play World of Warcraft, just to get some respite. That new-age adage “It’s not the destination but the journey that matters”, leaves me cold. Can you make a journey without a destination?
I’ve just now sat down from cooking in the kitchen - one of my favourite things to do if it isn’t chore-like. A glass of wine (essential), a good knife, a good chopping board and fresh veggies to chop. Music completes my heaven for the next 20 minutes. Other things make this heaven that much sweeter; Jackson, my husband who fires up the Bar-B-Que, the friends coming soon. Is this not an Unbearable Lightness of Being? Friends both here and gone are with me, in me, part of me. I’m not aware of them until I make a tunafish sandwich and there’s Lilian. Holding my French Knife for chopping, Pierre is conjured. Gail, my friend of 40 years (and I am gone from her for so many of them), is with me everyday. She is so much a part of me it’s like a prayer. Is this not an Unbearable Lightness of Being?
“I spoon you into my coffee cup, spin you through a delicate wash, I wear
you all day, I wear you all day.”
July 2014 sees my 61st year on this planet and I’m not certain what I want to say about that, perhaps I shouldn’t say anything. Growing up a thinker in a family of do-ers has made me feel out on the periphery; of course, so did my spending so much time away. While I have a feast of an internal life, it hasn’t translated very well to my outer life. I’ve made some attempts to be involved with art and explore new environments, spurred on by the creativity within, the “Rio Abajo Rio”, the river beneath the river, that Clarissa Pinkola Estes speaks about in her book, “Women Who Run With the Wolves”. Looking back, I see how life directed me to a path of contemplation. Sometimes I appear to be doing nothing while in fact I am doing so very much.
Part of me would like to just stay home. Many quiet, gentle women stayed home and were able to make plastic their genius, but the visions in my sleeping dreams encouraged me to experience a different sort of life. I am not a person of theological faith, but my spiritual life and my faith in love remain intact despite the little earthquakes along the way.I feel the need to have dialogues and relationships that have the potential for exploration and discovery. I have felt it was dangerous for me to accept someone else’s truth, so I’ve explored many different paths but all of them failed to resonate in my internal life. It seemed if I accepted one path, I had to give up the others.
It has cost me much, this way I’ve chosen. Alienation from my family, my friends, gone on to make their own lives. I can’t be a part of it, no one I love seeks me out. Someone said the secret to happiness is not getting everything you want but it’s definitely the road to unhappiness, in my opinion. Maybe it will all sort itself out in the end.
