In
a magnificent poem by Stephen Dunn there are these lines:
“The world thought
I didn’t understand
it,
but I did, knew that
to parse
was to narrow
and to narrow was to
live
one good way.
Awash with desire
I also knew a little
was plenty
and more than I deserved.
And because I was
guilty
long before any
verdict,
my dreams
unspeakable,
I hunkered down
and buttoned up,
ready to give the
world,
if I had to give it
anything,
no more than
a closed-mouth
kiss.”
It is that closing
off to the world, to people, to ourselves, that diminishes life. The world
thinks we don’t understand this, but we do. We just too often don’t admit it to
ourselves.
It is a scary
business to live wide open, exposed, accessible, revealing our true thoughts
and living by longings and knowledge, insights and beliefs and identity we own
and refuse to deny or disguise.
How easy it is
though, how tempting, to give in to the pressure to live “hunkered down and
buttoned up,” to give the world and life “a closed-mouth kiss.”
Kissing is an art.
Not everyone does it well. In order for the experience to remain, to leave a mark on your
insides, to stir things within that leave you a bit off balance, awakened,
inflamed, you have to be vulnerable. You have to feel things. And want things.
And you have to let go. You have to be driven, not necessarily wild, but
certainly free and unwound and therefore willing to depart with some of your
essence. This is how connection happens. And when the kiss connects then stars
move out of their stations and bring their light your way, and remedial forces
climb out of the caverns of your soul and something sensational undeniably
moves you and depletes you and sometimes, even often, heals you.
That is very much
like living life unbuttoned and free.
It is fear, however,
that keeps us from this kind of living. Fear of so many insubstantial,
nightmarish, haunting things. Fear of being hurt. Fear of succeeding, and
then what? Fear of being found out, of
people knowing we haven’t a clue. Fear of having too much or not enough. Fear
that the old voices that taunt us are right in their shaming words and critical
judgments. Fear that everything we thought was solid actually wobbles and under
scrutiny very often collapses. Marriage. Relationships. Career. Finances.
Faith. The whole enchilada.
Those fears are
real, but like most fears, they’re often illegitimate, assumed, riddled with
inaccuracies and false impressions. They come out of inarticulate anguish and
muted hurts. These misunderstood emotions often close us down, drag us into oppressive
self protection, and cause us to withhold so much unused self.
Sara Bareilles’s
song, “Brave,” written to encourage a friend of hers to come out and own her
gay life has been embraced by nearly everyone on the planet. People grabbed its
message of courage and held on whether they are gay or disabled or emotionally
broken or addicted or lonely or whatever other human experience any of us have that
too often keeps us in terrible fears.
“You can be the
outcast/Or be the backlash of somebody’s love/Or you can start speaking
up/Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do/When they settle ‘neath your
skin/Kept on the inside and no sunlight/Sometimes a shadow wins/But I wonder
what would happen if you say what you wanna say/And let the words fall out honestly/I
wanna see you be brave”
There is no
hunkering down in that, no closed-mouth kissing. No holding back or hiding. Just
a determination to be oneself and to live out of our own authenticity; to be
brave enough to show that we do understand the world and its stern realities. And
we understand ourselves. We will live a life that is our own. And it will be expressive
and full. It will be open and loving and fearless. It will radiate with meaning
that we, undaunted, choose to give it.
© 2014 Timothy Moody
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