Solitude
An entry for therealljidol week 22, "Token."
Lily turned it over and over in her hand, this object that acquired its sacredness through what it meant to her, through the meaning she attached to it. It had been with her for years, long years, since before the tides changed and swept away the thing that had been anchoring her in this life, maybe in time altogether.
To some, the form (so small it fit in the palm of her hand) was sacred - speaking of some ancient deity through its points, its curves, the hidden meanings of its interlacements and empty spaces. Which one? It didn't matter to her, believing as she did that what we expect to find in the Divine is what it will be. In her experience, the Divine had not name or form or gender or language other than those we chose for it. And on her journey - the relatively brief one on earth, not to mention the one beyond that was at once an eternity and the blink of an eye - she'd come to only one conclusion.
The Divine isn't this thing, or that thing, or the other. The Divine simply...is.
Ciaran had helped her know this better, held her hand as she became ever braver in walking her path - a path that twisted and crossed others and spent long, quiet stretches untrod except by her own feet. She was steadier in his company, and he was freer in hers.
Even so, she'd drifted away once already, far further than most who had returned could ever go, somewhere he couldn't follow. His love had pulled her back, trapped her between itself and eternal nameless joy.
But eventually, as she had dared to hold out hope he wouldn't, Ciaran had gone. There had been words - but kind ones, loving ones, words that only reinforced the knowledge floating somewhere in her veins. He loved her beyond reason. He loved her beyond sense. He simply loved her, beyond.
Why, then, did he go? Why did he give her one end of the cord, take the other, and flee with it beyond her sight? He'd promised so much, but with such unfettered honesty that even now she wouldn't believe he'd never deliver.
Only the perfectly-crafted silver token in her hand reassured her. Despite her understanding - and she did have it - she was bereft without that soft burr, those strong hands, those ocean-blue eyes in her presence, torn to pieces with all of it only in her memory.
With this, her amulet, her talisman, she could still feel him. He'd given it to her at the beginning, once they'd scratched the surface but before there was everything between them. So had it bound itself to both of them, absorbing the flood of emotions, strengthening with their connection, growing ever more formidable - more symbolic than wedding bands, and somehow more meaningful.
Everything else he'd given her was equally beyond explanation. All the strange things that had happened during her first 19 years had reordered themselves, begun to make more sense than rational reality, when he came into her life. Suddenly, she was no longer just the demure, ethereal, ballsy girl with a life full of weird coincidences.
With his hand in hers, the seven years that followed were overflowing with weirdness...fantastic, amazing, frightening, heart-rending, powerful weirdness. There wasn't another soul on this side of the veil who could comprehend it - how he'd ended up in her petroleum town, 6,000 miles away from his own, knowing but not knowing he was looking for her. How at first it was like ten years had passed in a day - but soon it was as if a month passed in a moment. And then...
...traveling beyond her skin...talking to him without speaking...dream-states that guided her through her days...discovering a talent for healing without medicine. Finding herself bearing their love inside her...and in five short days, unexpectedly finding herself bearing it no longer.
She'd told no one but him, and they'd grieved together. But as sturdy as his shoulders were for helping her bear burdens, there was nothing he could do to relieve the immense crush of the deepest sadness she'd ever known, compounded by her overwhelming attachment to him. The pain had buckled her under, and a week later, her body gave way and her soul left it to find solace, leaving only enough to keep the heart pumping, keep it breathing.
He'd told them she'd had a high fever, found a way to encourage them to believe it, and they'd decided it was a febrile seizure. For three days, he sat beside her life-supported shell, knowing that there was nothing the doctors could repair. Instead, he breathed with her, pressed the amulet into her hand so that some part of her would feel it, reached across the ether to beg her to come back to him, to help her find the way.
Over the weeks since he'd gone, she'd found herself thinking too often that she wished she hadn't followed. If only she could have avoided his call to her, she wouldn't still be crying her heart out every time she was alone, fighting all reason to be anything but alone; wouldn't feel as though she were walking around with a longsword straight through her solar plexus.
She knew it was dramatic, wanting to drift into nothingness, clinging to some trinket as if it were a life raft. He wasn't in it, wouldn't magically appear in front of her if she spoke the right words to it, couldn't be called to her vision with it. But any small part of his presence was better than none at all - which was, perhaps, the only reason she hadn't taken an elevator to the tallest building she could find and hurled the thing out into the void.
If she breathed deeply enough, she even knew that she wouldn't want to follow it down, not really. Getting up every day was like twisting that longsword, but get up she did. She didn't know from day to day whether she acted to spite him, or in hopes to somehow appease him. The reality was that he would come back, or he wouldn't, and for the moment she was powerless to change that.
So what the hell was she meant to do? The question burned behind her eyes, made her feel as if there was a hand around her throat. She couldn't put her life on hold until he suddenly reappeared one day, no matter how much of her life he had become.
So she held on - to her senses, to her soul, to her talisman. She closed her eyes and pushed her fingers one by one against each point, counting off the words she'd devised and said a thousand times over. She slowly rubbed her thumb over the smooth surface of the star ruby at the center.
To her surprise, she was washed over with a peace she hadn't felt in months. Suddenly, the answerless questions were nothing. The overpowering heartache evaporated and left serenity in its place. The fog that had draped her senses was lifted, and now she could see, she could hear, she could feel....
...solitude. Not loneliness, misery, or sorrow. A space for breath, for learning how to be herself again, the self she'd been before him, the self she became when she almost left him, the soul she'd always been beneath and around and because of and despite everything.
A place where she could be reborn.
This time, it was her own call she heard, beckoning her back from any far place she'd gone. Finally she understood what he'd been trying to tell her. So long as she'd had him to lean on, she would never have become everything she was meant to be. Basking in love and magic would have been enough for the rest of her days - and there was much more she needed to do.
She gave thanks, breathed in, and slowly opened her eyes. Here she was, cross-legged on her bed, the bejeweled silver knot resting in her upturned palms. Her house was still a house, her cat was still a cat, and the world was still turning.
She realized that she hadn't really looked in the mirror for weeks. It was almost a surprise to see that her dark hair still hung below her shoulders in fine curls, but not that her brown eyes were underlined with bluish circles, and maybe a little swollen.
She looked down at the token with admiration and nostalgia, instead of the reverence she'd held for so long. Maybe it was still sacred, still held some kind of power. Maybe someday it would gleam in her hands, even hang from her neck again.
For now, she needed to give it a rest. She walked to her dresser, opened a low drawer, tucked the pendant gently beneath a stack of old t-shirts. Lightning didn't strike; the earth didn't shake. The only sound was the slide and click of the drawer closing...and then she stood silent, wondering: what now?
A tiny meow presaged a furry body rubbing against her ankle; she lifted little Misha into her arms and scratched him behind the ears, pressing her forehead against his affectionately. What now? Feed the cat. Get a shower. E-mail her editing clients and let them know she was available again. Call her mother and say - honestly, this time - that she was doing better, that she was going to be OK.
Lily lowered Misha to the bed, whereupon he meowed again and trotted toward the kitchen. Feed the cat. Shower. Get on with the rest of her life.
Put one foot in front of the other, follow the cat into the kitchen...and breathe.
If you're curious about Lily's journey on the other side of the veil, go back and read Returning.
Lily turned it over and over in her hand, this object that acquired its sacredness through what it meant to her, through the meaning she attached to it. It had been with her for years, long years, since before the tides changed and swept away the thing that had been anchoring her in this life, maybe in time altogether.
To some, the form (so small it fit in the palm of her hand) was sacred - speaking of some ancient deity through its points, its curves, the hidden meanings of its interlacements and empty spaces. Which one? It didn't matter to her, believing as she did that what we expect to find in the Divine is what it will be. In her experience, the Divine had not name or form or gender or language other than those we chose for it. And on her journey - the relatively brief one on earth, not to mention the one beyond that was at once an eternity and the blink of an eye - she'd come to only one conclusion.
The Divine isn't this thing, or that thing, or the other. The Divine simply...is.
Ciaran had helped her know this better, held her hand as she became ever braver in walking her path - a path that twisted and crossed others and spent long, quiet stretches untrod except by her own feet. She was steadier in his company, and he was freer in hers.
Even so, she'd drifted away once already, far further than most who had returned could ever go, somewhere he couldn't follow. His love had pulled her back, trapped her between itself and eternal nameless joy.
But eventually, as she had dared to hold out hope he wouldn't, Ciaran had gone. There had been words - but kind ones, loving ones, words that only reinforced the knowledge floating somewhere in her veins. He loved her beyond reason. He loved her beyond sense. He simply loved her, beyond.
Why, then, did he go? Why did he give her one end of the cord, take the other, and flee with it beyond her sight? He'd promised so much, but with such unfettered honesty that even now she wouldn't believe he'd never deliver.
Only the perfectly-crafted silver token in her hand reassured her. Despite her understanding - and she did have it - she was bereft without that soft burr, those strong hands, those ocean-blue eyes in her presence, torn to pieces with all of it only in her memory.
With this, her amulet, her talisman, she could still feel him. He'd given it to her at the beginning, once they'd scratched the surface but before there was everything between them. So had it bound itself to both of them, absorbing the flood of emotions, strengthening with their connection, growing ever more formidable - more symbolic than wedding bands, and somehow more meaningful.
Everything else he'd given her was equally beyond explanation. All the strange things that had happened during her first 19 years had reordered themselves, begun to make more sense than rational reality, when he came into her life. Suddenly, she was no longer just the demure, ethereal, ballsy girl with a life full of weird coincidences.
With his hand in hers, the seven years that followed were overflowing with weirdness...fantastic, amazing, frightening, heart-rending, powerful weirdness. There wasn't another soul on this side of the veil who could comprehend it - how he'd ended up in her petroleum town, 6,000 miles away from his own, knowing but not knowing he was looking for her. How at first it was like ten years had passed in a day - but soon it was as if a month passed in a moment. And then...
...traveling beyond her skin...talking to him without speaking...dream-states that guided her through her days...discovering a talent for healing without medicine. Finding herself bearing their love inside her...and in five short days, unexpectedly finding herself bearing it no longer.
She'd told no one but him, and they'd grieved together. But as sturdy as his shoulders were for helping her bear burdens, there was nothing he could do to relieve the immense crush of the deepest sadness she'd ever known, compounded by her overwhelming attachment to him. The pain had buckled her under, and a week later, her body gave way and her soul left it to find solace, leaving only enough to keep the heart pumping, keep it breathing.
He'd told them she'd had a high fever, found a way to encourage them to believe it, and they'd decided it was a febrile seizure. For three days, he sat beside her life-supported shell, knowing that there was nothing the doctors could repair. Instead, he breathed with her, pressed the amulet into her hand so that some part of her would feel it, reached across the ether to beg her to come back to him, to help her find the way.
Over the weeks since he'd gone, she'd found herself thinking too often that she wished she hadn't followed. If only she could have avoided his call to her, she wouldn't still be crying her heart out every time she was alone, fighting all reason to be anything but alone; wouldn't feel as though she were walking around with a longsword straight through her solar plexus.
She knew it was dramatic, wanting to drift into nothingness, clinging to some trinket as if it were a life raft. He wasn't in it, wouldn't magically appear in front of her if she spoke the right words to it, couldn't be called to her vision with it. But any small part of his presence was better than none at all - which was, perhaps, the only reason she hadn't taken an elevator to the tallest building she could find and hurled the thing out into the void.
If she breathed deeply enough, she even knew that she wouldn't want to follow it down, not really. Getting up every day was like twisting that longsword, but get up she did. She didn't know from day to day whether she acted to spite him, or in hopes to somehow appease him. The reality was that he would come back, or he wouldn't, and for the moment she was powerless to change that.
So what the hell was she meant to do? The question burned behind her eyes, made her feel as if there was a hand around her throat. She couldn't put her life on hold until he suddenly reappeared one day, no matter how much of her life he had become.
So she held on - to her senses, to her soul, to her talisman. She closed her eyes and pushed her fingers one by one against each point, counting off the words she'd devised and said a thousand times over. She slowly rubbed her thumb over the smooth surface of the star ruby at the center.
To her surprise, she was washed over with a peace she hadn't felt in months. Suddenly, the answerless questions were nothing. The overpowering heartache evaporated and left serenity in its place. The fog that had draped her senses was lifted, and now she could see, she could hear, she could feel....
...solitude. Not loneliness, misery, or sorrow. A space for breath, for learning how to be herself again, the self she'd been before him, the self she became when she almost left him, the soul she'd always been beneath and around and because of and despite everything.
A place where she could be reborn.
This time, it was her own call she heard, beckoning her back from any far place she'd gone. Finally she understood what he'd been trying to tell her. So long as she'd had him to lean on, she would never have become everything she was meant to be. Basking in love and magic would have been enough for the rest of her days - and there was much more she needed to do.
She gave thanks, breathed in, and slowly opened her eyes. Here she was, cross-legged on her bed, the bejeweled silver knot resting in her upturned palms. Her house was still a house, her cat was still a cat, and the world was still turning.
She realized that she hadn't really looked in the mirror for weeks. It was almost a surprise to see that her dark hair still hung below her shoulders in fine curls, but not that her brown eyes were underlined with bluish circles, and maybe a little swollen.
She looked down at the token with admiration and nostalgia, instead of the reverence she'd held for so long. Maybe it was still sacred, still held some kind of power. Maybe someday it would gleam in her hands, even hang from her neck again.
For now, she needed to give it a rest. She walked to her dresser, opened a low drawer, tucked the pendant gently beneath a stack of old t-shirts. Lightning didn't strike; the earth didn't shake. The only sound was the slide and click of the drawer closing...and then she stood silent, wondering: what now?
A tiny meow presaged a furry body rubbing against her ankle; she lifted little Misha into her arms and scratched him behind the ears, pressing her forehead against his affectionately. What now? Feed the cat. Get a shower. E-mail her editing clients and let them know she was available again. Call her mother and say - honestly, this time - that she was doing better, that she was going to be OK.
Lily lowered Misha to the bed, whereupon he meowed again and trotted toward the kitchen. Feed the cat. Shower. Get on with the rest of her life.
Put one foot in front of the other, follow the cat into the kitchen...and breathe.
If you're curious about Lily's journey on the other side of the veil, go back and read Returning.