Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Things That Break
"The things that break - be they bones, hearts, or promises - can be put back together but will never really be whole."
I saw this quote somewhere a week or two ago and I cannot get the image out of my head. Most things DO break if given enough time. I'm like most things then. For a long time, I have felt as if I am breaking. My memory shows cracks and the cracks shake my sense of me. My mind twists as it searches for sleep at night, potentially breaking into fragments. My heart feels strung out and thin, skating on slippery expectations, looking for warm. My body moves as a million units, all screaming their own names, all poised to break, one piece at a time. Can I be put back together again? My friend Megan suggests that these images are hopeful, that some things can be broken up and can be reassembled. How would that look? My memory reassembles as a whole different person, the play of childhood replaced by the taunting of adolescence or the disappointments of employment. My mind shatters on its way to sleep one night and I wake up as brilliant artist who loves math and can speak French. My heart? My heart attaches itself to sweets and softens up, thin no more and wrapped in a cozy rich blanket of fat. My body units go to Esalen and take a workshop in interpersonal communication and start hugging each other. So I am put back together again, maybe not every piece, maybe not whole, but recreated in some new way. And a new part of life begins.
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The potential for realignment of that which once was considered "broken" is a concept full of possibility. Imagine the soul or spirit always in a state of knowing and trust it's ability to always be whole. I think that is the one thing that need not break with the passage of time. By following it, the essential parts of us remain intact, and if other things break, we have the power to realign the pieces with grace and wisdom.
ReplyDeleteThe whole idea of something breaking is based on the presumption that it was in a finite, static state to begin with, and then lost that state in its breaking. What if nothing is static to begin with? That everything is in a constant state of change and evolution, then how can anything ever be broken?
ReplyDeleteSo is there also the presumption then that breaking is bad? Perhaps breaking is normal and good? Is there a better (ie,more descriptive) word that would convey this positive state?
ReplyDeleteYour passage reminds me of the metaphor that we are like a spinning top......and as time rattles on the top slows ever so much and worbbles a tad left to right.....but in this slowness we are not spinning so tight and fast like before that we actually can take in more of what is happening and enjoy the experience. When the top finally stops, why we just wait for the child to get her spinning again...........
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