Mindful Living: The Newsletter of Cybèle

With the holidays on the brink of rolling around, and maybe already are according to the craft shops, I'm starting to eye my e-mail with a dread toward those inevitable "family newsletters." You know what I mean - those letters sent out by well-meaning friends with their shorthand of another year. I get one from a friend who travels to someplace exotic every chance she gets. Peru, Ghana, Bolivia, wherever. The photo invariably shows her wearing a vest covered in pockets and macho hiking boots. There are snow capped peaks and exotic grasses in the background. She wears a set and passionate expression, the kind I might have when diving into a cool pond, but never a hiking trip. Another friend's newsletter writes of the many manifestations of her children, grandchildren, parents, step-this and half-that. Hospital visits. Soccer trophies. New jobs. Old hobbies. High school friends I've long forgotten

If it were the "Newsletter of Cybele" it wouldn't be either of these, being as I'm allergic to both traveling and children. For me it might be that I became, despite a lifetime of disinclinations, a leader. I learned from my baby snake about becoming disentangled. I designed a brochure of soft blue hues. I wrote columns that friends forwarded to their friends. I made a "flower bouquet" of vegetables - radish roses, broccoli tulips and cauliflower kisses. I took portraits of my sister who lay against a rock on Blueberry Island and trusted me to find her beautiful side. But even these things are not who I "am" exactly, just physical manifestations of my passionate interior.

If I were to find the real me it wouldn't be in the once a year newsletter version of stuff I did. It wouldn't be in the monthly e-mail I send to friends here and about, telling them of the latest romance, the latest political maneuverings , the latest on my job, the latest of the latest. Sometimes I think my friend Alison must know me the best because we exchange e-mail nearly every day. She hears about how many mice Suki ate that week and what suit I wore that day and how it felt to be hurt by someone I trusted. More detailed yes, but more me? Maybe it's as close as another person can come to experiencing what is inside me, or anyone. We are in a way, forever strangers to each other.

The essence of my soul is so often lost somewhere in the telling, in the winding of words around an experience. I tend to think I am only truly present when I press my face close to my cat and feel him give way to my closeness, and press back ever so slightly. It's when I am slipping into sleep and I can smell the rain rustling outside my bedroom window. It's when I'm listening to Moby sing and feeling Suki's velvetyness caress my palms. Even maybe when it's midnight and yet I am driven to scribble this column on scratch paper, even as my eyes burn with sleep and my hand aches from unaccustomed longhand.

As hard as it is to show people my deepest self, I am so moved by it in others. Every once in a while someone will open up to me. Instead of the this or that chit chat, they open their heart and let me gaze right in. Every time this happens I have this feeling like I might weep; I want to reach out and touch something so urgent, so real. It's a vulnerability that I rarely show, and am not even sure I possess. Perhaps that's why its scent draws me in.

Mostly though, people tell me about their salt-water fishtank, or their neon sign collection, or how they like to ski competitively. These things are interesting, but they are just facts and could be replaced instead by collecting antique juicers, keeping a 1950's massage chair in your livingroom that takes quarters to function, or decorating with naked goddesses from pre-Christian times.

The truth is, I don't care about your hobbies, your interests, what you spend your time with. Are you present or is your mind wandering off to the next thing? Can you ask me questions and hear the answers? Are your questions about me, or really about you? I want to know what you will do when I am sad. Will you change the subject and go to the kitchen to grill another hot dog, or can you listen? I want to know what you will do when we have a fight. Will you work it through with me, or will you exit the room and the relationship because you don't know that arguments pass and life goes on? I want to know if you are grounded enough to know who you are and what you want, and can tell me these things.

I don't care about the what so much as the why of things. Tell me for a minute about how you love this book describing how men wore their hats in the 1940's. But tell me for an hour about what this means to you and why it moves you so.

Please don't send me a newsletter of things you did this year. Tell me of the hurt, the joy, the confusion, the strength you felt, or didn't feel. Send me a photo of your dreams, your fantasies, your secret passions. Open your heart so that I can glimpse, just for a moment, your heart buried deep in the pile of things you did. Share with me, and hopefully, hopefully I'll know how to return the gift.

Copyright August, 2001

Reprinting Information
Would you like to reprint this column? If so, do ask! I usually allow distribution because spiritually speaking, sharing ideas is an important way of expressing my faith. Please e-mail me at CybeleW@aol.com