Sand and Pearls

Two nights ago, I called the Samaritans — me!  The Comma Painting Queen; the one who consistently sends the despairing out of her office with new hope, sometimes even with a chuckle or a skip in the step.

I knew I wouldn’t do it.  I have a husband whom I simply cannot hurt, my partner in this Crime of Life.  I have a son who loves and needs me, and whom I love much, much more than my own breath.

That night I didn’t love my breath at all.  It was a curse that I kept on breathing with such tiresome tenacity. It was not a big drama at all; just a profound weariness.  Tired of battling pain; weary of the needy, vicious stupidity of workmates, relatives, ex-relatives, politicians, countries, strangers on the train.

During the previous two days I had been engaged in an ugly verbal wrestle with a workmate, in which I was treated to the most poisonous abuse because I had chosen not to  invite her to sit on a committee.  It was the kind of  exchange that is petty and vile; ultimately soul-shredding; the kind of experience that makes me wish I was a tree.  or a daisy in the field.

At the end of the day I queued to get on a commuter train.  I was attacked by a fellow passenger before boarding.  She looked at my walking stick, and snarled, “You won’t be getting a seat from me!” , and spat at me.

Ah.  Another sentient creature with the potential for enlightenment.  This is the endless, wearisome challenge that makes me as sure as dirt that the role of boddhisatva is something I will never attain.

I resisted the need; the impulse to retaliate.  There had been enough retaliation for one day.

I did get a seat. Cramped, uncomfortable, exposed, I sat in Hell, looking straight ahead; just being.  And the tears began to stream.  They began, and I recognised something from fifteen years ago; (ah!) and I knew they wouldn’t stop.

It washed up against me like a tsunami of tears — grief selfishly, for me, for my relentless pain; for the struggle of being that all people share, for my son’s recent diagnosis, for my close friend’s loss of both father and homeland…on and on; and then again a second tsunami of sewage — the vile putrid stench of resentment, outrage, a hideous desire for retribution.

It went on and on without mercy or pause. I knew I wouldn’t do it; I knew I would pull myself back from the brink — but ah — the pull, the powerful seduction  of, “enough”.

At 4:00 a.m. I was still engulfed.  After twelve hours of hurtling downward, I could actually see the floor of the abyss.

The Samaritans.  I knew I could right myself on my own; I knew I would.  I always do.  After so many times over the edge, I’ve worn a path.

I just didn’t want to do it alone. I could.  I just didn’t want to.

……the small humanness of reaching out to a stranger for kindness helped me right myself.  It humbled me oddly.

Being a human being is like playing Bach on a ukelele.