Last night, at a party at
Phil Deaver’s house, Carol Frost said to me, “Some things are just a
mystery. You won’t be able to
explain this.” She was listening to me attempt to
console a colleague who had just experienced the break-up of a year-long
relationship.
I
kept thinking about those words late into the night, and hearing them helped me
see a pattern—my enormous need for explanation. Yes, yes, there it is
again. Fairly relentless. Maybe part of the reason I became a
teacher. Somewhere along the line
I caught the assumption that things can be figured out, or at least grappled
with in some coherent manner. This
assumption, taken to its worst conclusion, becomes a desire to fix things. So like last night, as I was watching my
colleague’s sadness rise and fall through the evening, big tears welling, I so
wanted to help her, to say something that would make sense of her experience,
or give her some kind of guidance, some understanding. There must be some way
to frame this event that makes it acceptable. It's a pattern of mine, of course, one that rises in me like
a relentless wave. I'm learning how to ride that wave. I try to practice benign silence.
As I rode through the night, I assumed
Carol was right. Of course she’s
right, I thought, impatient with myself.
Love is a mystery. You can’t even get love issues straight
for yourself, so why are you trying to figure it out for a thirty-year-old
woman? Some things are simply mysterious. I wanted to rest into that conclusion. In a way, it would be easier. Just give up trying to understand. There
is no figuring things out, Lezlie, just accept it. Carol’s face was so serene when she spoke. Her words must surely be true. In the early morning hours, I could
feel myself in calmer waters.
But now, it’s Sunday, and sunny outside, and the
day is urging me forward. The old
need is rising again. The doubt
returns as that wave begins to build.
“Is Carol right?” I wonder.
Must we resign ourselves to this dark room of mystery? Or is that an easy way to avoid doing
the work? I have this fear of not
making the appropriate effort to know what can be known, to live what can be
lived. When do I succumb to
mystery and when do I push toward understanding? Or. . . do I reside in the middle of those two
positions? A surfer riding the enormous,
unfathomable force of a wave but bringing my own facility of balance and focus
to the board.
