[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

The Conversation

We sat in her autumn garden and talked, Martine and I. I'd dropped by her 
studio on the way back from Ottawa, hoping to find her in -- her studio is 
open "by chance or by appointment", so it was a bit dodgy. But there she 
was, getting ready for the weekend art tour. She works in all sort of media 
-- glass, pottery, watercolours, oils. I love visiting, seeing what she's 
putting together from her tableful of stash -- she does a lot with found 
objects. I have several of her pieces; my favourite is a small black iron 
cage, adorned with slips of coloured glass and big bright earrings, which 
dangles in my front hall.

She made me tea and we talked and talked. Lately I've been blessed by such 
conversations; they seem to be becoming almost normal in my life. I'd had 
coffee with Andrew, whose partner Bill has bone cancer. I'd listened to 
Sybil telling about her husband's difficult death; he'd put her through 
hell on his way out. I'd visited my friend Toby in prison, and he had 
babbled like a brook, totally transparent and open, a transformed soul. I'd 
had a long, good lunch with Anna, whose marriage is foundering. And now 
Martine, who'd lost both parents and her husband in 18 months and is facing 
one of those huge life transitions -- as am I.

I grew up in a culture of reticence, where we didn't speak of important 
matters, where such speech was suspect, even indecorous. Keep the 
conversation light and civilized and (preferably) clever and 
stimulating.  Don't air the dirty linen. A part of me can still see the 
value of this approach; it doesn't burden total strangers, as the Ancient 
Mariner did, with a hell of a lot more information than they want. It puts 
high value on discipline, reticence, and good form, none of which is a Bad 
Thing. I'm generally with Miss Manners, and this sort of discourse is 
exactly to her taste. And of course I don't like whiners any more than you 
do. (But there's whining and there's real suffering, and those who really 
suffer rarely whine.)

The problem with this way of operating is that it doesn't work very well in 
Interesting Times. In Interesting Times, you lack the energy for polite 
conversation; what you need to do is to talk -- really talk -- with genuine 
honesty, because that sort of talking and listening is where love truly 
happens, and love's what you most need.  That's the part that dear Miss 
Manners, much as I admire her, doesn't get -- or at least doesn't write 
about: It's not about being correct; it's about mustering and communicating 
it love, and making a space for someone who's suffering to be open about 
the suffering. It's about holding the sufferer in support and later in 
healing.  It's not narcissism or self-indulgence to need to talk openly and 
authentically when you're hurting really badly, although that's the message 
that I'd been brought up with and had heard a little too much from the 
communities to which I could not quite belong.  It's normal and human and 
right.  It's what we're supposed to do for each other.

I've listened to friends' troubles any number of times in the past; I think 
particularly of my adoptive daughter and the long, good talks we've had, 
and of other friends who have confided in me and who've listened in turn to 
my burblings. But something's different now.  There's been a sea-change, 
and it's in me. It's no longer a matter of caring for others, because that 
was the right thing to do; it's turned into a joy. It's an affirmation of 
the distance I've come since my own Interesting Times, the things I've 
learned, the wisdom I've garnered, usually the very hard way.  It's 
emboldening me to take the path that's authentically mine.  And that may 
mean walking away from places that don't permit that sort of honesty, not 
in anger or even in disagreement, but because I'm called to something 
richer and more nourishing.

Artists say that nothing is more beautiful than the naked human body. 
Martine and I don't fit the culture's definition of "beautiful body", not 
by a *very* long shot, but as we talked, our souls were naked, and I saw -- 
as I'd seen in talking to Toby and Anna and Sybil and Andrew -- how 
extraordinarily beautiful a thing is the naked human soul.

We sat and sipped our tea and she smoked a cigarette, and the autumn garden 
shone green and gold around us. She'd planted sunflowers, yellow and 
bronze, and their flowers glowed in the late afternoon sun. The garden held 
a Tree of Life she'd made in orange glass, hung on a black iron frame. The 
Tree of Life is her central symbol; it's painted on the front of her 
studio. It's an ample and bountiful symbol, full of fruit.  She's done so 
much serious suffering in the last couple of years, and yet joy poured out 
of her studio and washed through the garden she created last summer. Joy 
streamed through her small house and spilled out on the front lawn. Joy 
shone in her voice as she picked up a small piece of glass and started 
musing about where it might take her. We talked about the hard things we've 
been through, and joy -- the most satisfying golden stuff -- lapped around 
our feet. I'd believed it in theory, but now I could feel it in fact, that 
joy is indeed the other side of suffering. When we withhold ourselves from 
suffering -- our own or others' -- because "it's not quite nice", we lose 
that joy.

I bought a small glass panel, but I left it in her studio for the gallery 
tour. I'll collect it in a couple of weeks.  It may be too cold then to sit 
out in the garden, but we can hope for a warm October.