Wednesday, December 30, 2009

THE EMPRESS OF BOWLS AND THE PAGE OF THE WIND

     Once upon a time there lived a man with a very special ability. Now, everyone has the ability to do something. Some are better runners and some make more money, while others are better at saving money or running longer rather than fast. This man had a very unique ability, and while it is often talked about as something that is admired in thought by others, it is usually something never seen.   This man could see into another persons heart as though it were made of glass. Not just the things others wanted him to see, but everything. The good and the bad. The tiny, nearly imperceptible perfections, and the flaws of character that make people more human, not less.  All the dark secrets and dreams kept contained in airtight boxes and under wrappings far away from the regular personality that contained them.  He could see the good or the evil person underneath the mask, regardless of what they hoped to hide.  What caused it in the past, how it was either used as a tool or exploited by others, and how it would affect them in the future, all laid out like pieces to an outwardly confusing puzzle that needed nothing but one shake of the box to see it for all it truly was.  It was a wonderful gift, but one that came with a very high price in order for him to possess it. For all that this gift was to him, and for all it can do for others, he was unable to lie about what he saw, nor cover up what he could not do. Like Cassandra from Greek mythology, whose beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of premonition, but cursed her for not returning his love, so that no one would ever believe her predictions. It is the full measure of irony that both this man, and Cassandra, are a  combination of deep understanding combined with powerlessness to enable others with the power of it that exemplifies the tragic condition of humankind.

     He spent most of his time ensuring that the people around him understood what it was he could do, because he was always aware of how uncomfortable it made other people to know there was little that could be hidden from him once he looked, but he tempered their discomfort with  somethng else.  When it seemed that others had divulged far more of themselves than they were used to, he would simply open himself and honestly tell others he loved and understood what he felt in his heart.  It was only fair. With the gift of insight for others cames the appreciation of hidden virtues and the  inability to decieve or to use someone elses emotions as as a tool.  It was not only a fair trade for what he could do, it was a humane gesture that refused to exploit what could not be fought by others.  To have the ability to take from others, against  their will, is a powerful thing, but to have that power and refuse the ease with which it can be used to exploit, is the very definition of absolute power controlled absolutely.
     For most of his life, this man went out of his way to instill a sense of compassion for anyone he met. Different and better than anyone else because to have that much ability to be within another persons hopes and wishes is a dangerous weapon, and he saw fit to protect that for them by talking and communicating his feelings as much as he knew of others.  Most people keep the secrets contained within them because they are so accustomed to the shame or the guilt that results from admitting them, and intractable fear of reprisal orchestrating the movements of their lives into docile subservience concealed in a shroud of regretful duty. He would never allow a person to feel shame or guilt at what he was so gifted to see. And so he talked.  He talked openly and honestly of what he felt to the same degree that he felt it or saw it in others.  It was the only way he could justify the ability he was given without others shrinking away from him in fear. Every noble notion exemplified and taken notice of by him, and every deep dark fear or shortfall protected as well, as if he never knew how it could be so easily employed to destroy them from the inside out, should anyone else find out.
     This man is so much like everyone else in every other way, though. He did the same things everyone else did, and yearned and hoped as well as anyone.  He worked hard and fair, but through it all he talked. He learned as much as he possibly could of the world, but he always talked. He took his own ideas of right and wrong and ensured that others understood  that what he believed was decent if not easily known and more often than not, came with a deeper understanding of the situation far beyond what he himself could or could not gain from it..
        One day, after learning enough of his own life to share it with someone else, he happened to fall in love. And while it seemed perfect in the beginning; to be able to talk to another person in the way he had learned, he soon found that there was something even more important than knowing the thoughts and dreams of another person, and more critical than being able to tell them honestly what he felt. He found that what a person is or feels, or makes of himself, means very little if you are not recognized as capable of doing it or accomplishing it. He found that there is only one thing worse than being something and not telling them you are capable of it. He found that some people simply didn't want to hear at all. As though the mere telling of a virtue was enough, and that by practicing it beyond the definition, was a moot point if it wasn't needed.
     For all of the things he would willingly admit as a part of himself, the opinions and concern for what he thought by the woman he loved, became less and less important.  Until finally, it didn't matter  what he said at all. It mattered less how he felt about it, either. No matter that tobe without them would mean less of himself. She simply would not listen.   It was as though he were given mastery of  thoughts and could harness it like the wind to be lofted like a tiny puff of knowing or  erupt into a gale of epiphany. All that was needed was to direct the wind of change toward that which he felt should know it. And she never did. She had no use of the wind, nor of his voice, nor of what he thought. The wind becoming an inconsequential bluster to  flat, but more significant, lives of paper.
      Many of his family and friends knew they could never harness all of this at once, and revelled in the ability of him to do so, but needed only small bits of it to propel them through their own lives. As though knowing that to fully feel it would simply be a waste of air from which there was an endless supply. As though pinwheels were preferred to the wind mills he could move.  He had always needed a person who could appreciate every breeze, but when it came time to actually have the woman he needed  feel it, simply furled her sails and chose to drift in a sea of wasted opportunity. She had the abilities of a clipper ship, and chose to be a rowboat with no need of wind nor sails at all. All the hopes and intention in the air, and it wafted to the ceilings of his life in limp errant wisps. And so for all of the ability of this man to be heard, it is ironic that he would spend so much of his life with a woman who was deaf. Not by circumstance or infirmity, but by choice.
 She could hear, but without listening, it was not her who seemed the failure. It was he who was made into a feeble mute.  This went on for many years until the man had resigned himself to the reciept of a useless gift that had all of the potential in the world but was not going to be utilized for what it was intended. It was a diamond in the dirt that had the undeserving requirement of being recognized and appreciated by someone else before it could have any value to himself at all. Worse yet, was that he rested beneath the surface mere inches from the light that might have brought the eyes of others to the worth of him.  This is the story that starts with a man who had a loud and honest voice, and who could no longer justify nor endure begging for love of a deaf woman on her terms alone.
      One day this man met another woman who was very very different.  He spoke to her, and for the first time in many many years, something wonderful happened.  The thoughts came into his head as they always had, and the voice he was so used to having ignored so often, came out just the same. But when it hit her ears, she spoke back to him. A complete circle.  A thought of his that would move to his voice to be said to another person and heard, and a voice that would hear and understand what he had said, and  return it it with a thought of her own on a voice he could hear and wanted to understand. This is the woman where his story did not come to an end, but a beginning of such staggering force that it would change his life completely.
     Now this woman has a story of her own as well.  She was born into a world with some of the most amazing qualities.  She was compassionate and kind, and had within her an almost uncanny ability to grasp exactly what it was that made for a happy and joyous life. Not only the need of it, but the understanding that it was necessary for others around her to benefit from it with the worth she knew it to have. She spent her life  with a fully developed and complete understanding of what it was to love and to be loved in return.  All of the critical details that were needed to be filled and just waiting for the opportunity to have each one to overflowing. As though every emotion and feeling, every situation expected of her to be a success, was an ewer or a bowl, set on a table like a banquet and merely needed them to showered from above.
     She had a dualistic quality that was very much like the man she would meet later on in her life, however.  Because for all of her ability to know within her a kind of love and fullfillment very few people will ever understand, it came with the ability to hide it away from everyone else.  And without her telling anyone what it was she felt inside, simply became a person compassionate enough to let others decide for her what they would give to her, and she would adjust her dreams accordingly to fit that model. Because that is the gift of compassion. To give more of yourself than is expected back. She could feel what others could not, and could hear what others said, but she could not speak for herself. She earned her position by what others defined for her to be worthy of, without ever asking herself why they were more qualified than she to receive them.  And the answer was sadly simple. Because she was told so. It was an expectation of fulfillment that became an expectation of necessity in order to feel fulfilled.     She, too, fell in love when she had learned all that she could about herself, and went about adjusting the pitchers and bowls and ewers that would fill her life as she knew it should be.  Just like the man, it worked at first. It worked with effort as anything of value should, but as time went by, the amount of labor required to achieve the same result waxed and waned. It did not happen over night. It happened slowly, without ever having her realizing that if she had to adjust the receptacles to fill them, that the love and joy that she expected for herself obviously was not falling steady and evenly everywhere at the same time.  It sprinkled in some areas and was totally non existent in others. It came in great spouting gouts where it wasn't needed and into trays much too small to hold it. Much of what she hoped to catch was wasted by spilling onto the table. In others, where the pitcher was more than sufficient to hold it all, she strained to hold the handle exactly where she needed it to get but a trickle, and in the labor of it, got even less by being too small or too tired to hold it steady. Worse yet, was the feeling that it was her fault that the trickle could not be caught at all, not that the pitcher had to be tilted in the first place to catch a meager amount.  All in all, it was a great deal of work and effort to be able to try and fill them all, and usually resulted in her pointing to the overfilled trays and insignificant bowls,trying desperately to draw attention away from the telltale wet tablecloth underneath that showed wasted effort. She would beam proudly at them but even more so, she grew exhausted while shifting her body to shield from view the large and accomodating, but equally empty and dry, pitchers that would show that she recieved little or nothing. And for all that could be noticed as contributing to the over all effect, chastised herself as though the only person who could have made it better was her. That what she did not receive was her failing alone. 
     She had tried vainly, and for the most part was very well appreciated and honored for what she tried to achieve more than for what she received from it. She became the pillar that held the bowls aloft, and the pediment that steadied the bowls, but they never seemed to fill to her liking. She blotted the tablecloths of the precious water and resented having to hide in a cloth what she so desired within her bowls. It frustrated her, and she had hundreds of different views and ideas about how to make it all work, but was ashamed to speak and be seen as something more than simply the successful "Empress of The Bowls". Even when she did manage to speak her mind, she was often reminded that she is merely here to move the bowls, and that how and when they should come to overflowing was simply not up to her. The bowls and cups were hers to hold, but the water within was not her decision to have. It was however, her fault if they did not do so, and her responsibility to endure the lack of it if she failed.
     The woman spent most of her life like this. Sometimes for family, sometimes for friends. Sometimes for every other person except for herself, and sadly, that is one of her greatest faults. She set  herself below the wants of others at the expense of what she needed. And for all of her ability to view her soul inward, and her ability to feel that she had just as much right as anyone else to feelwhat she felt as what she didn't, she simply couldn't bring herself to open up and admit it. She relied more on her ability to have her motions dictate to others what she needed them to feel, but never realized that they simply refused to look. She had all of the thoughts within her that were as pure as her dreams. She had a beautiful voice, but she never believed she had the ability to use it.  And so she spent her years believing that she was indeed mute, herself, when all she needed to do was speak, and that the fault lay mostly on her for what she could say, and did not.This is the story of a woman who could feel and perform the will of angels but fell in love with a man who would not listen.
     One day the man who had a voice but was deaf to the world met the woman who could hear the world but could not speak.  It wasn't planned by either of them, and they both simply dropped softly into each others lives like a kitten into an apron. It wasn't expected that these two people would come to know  each other  any differently than the multitude of others who had reacted to them in the same way countless times before, but they noticed each other just the same, and in each of them, something happened.  There was a realization that this person...was different. Not just slightly, but critically different.
 He spoke to her. And for the first time in many many years, something wonderful happened.  The thoughts came into his head as they always had, and the voice he was so used to having ignored came out just the same, but when it hit her ears, she heard it inside of herself as though he spoke into her soul. And as if to confirm that it was not simply a trick of hope and yearning on his part, she spoke back to him. A small waterfall of knowing began with a trickle as each one tested the ability of the other, until there was a torrent of thought and feeling travelling between the two of them. It was a knowing. As though the wind suddenly fell into a place where wondered if he had it within himself to fill it.  For the first time in his life he had found someone who could hold all that he could give and have him striving to give her more.  And for her it was the same. As though unexpectedly all of her bowls and ewers and pitchers were suddenly aligned and began recieving an unseen fountain of water. The air that he had always wished to fill sails with suddenly found purchase in the ability to fill the tiniest of cups as easily as the largest of basins.  The air dried the moistened tablecloth of her frustrations and failed attempts to have love, and the plates and dishes suddenly filled when it was seen that what was put into them was just as real yet required only the slightest breeze to fill them.
     When the two of them were together, everything mixed together. It was no longer simply the speaking that expended the effort. It was the understanding that what was spoken was going to be returned by a woman who never spoke. Each one a truth and each one returned to the other as proof that it mattered. It wasn't what was done anymore that defined the effort. It was the gentle feeling that it was being accepted. As though the best way to know that something is comfort is to feel it resist slightly against you and then sudeenly relax with the taking in of it. The way a pillow resists your head but still brings the embrace of safety.
     For each thing the mute man spoke, it fell into the ears of the woman who could understand it all and then come from a voice she thought no one would listen to to be felt again by him. Not just what was said with a word, but the weight of a thought.
     The man she had left berated her by asking her what was so important if there was nothing within her cups? It was simply empty air. How could it possibly be of substance or worth more than water? No mention of the fact that it was steady, or complete, or warming with minimal effort. It was simply not what she had defined as needing in the beginning, and therefore the wrong thing to have.
    And the man was chastised by what he left for wasting his time and effort blowing into the cups and bowls when it was obvious that he did not belong where he was nor being responsible with his station in life when it was his lot to fill sails regardless of whether anyone saw fit to have them filled.  He was told to blow and continue to do so until they saw fit to use him.

And so a solution was made. Not a solution to their own liking, but one that was obviously tolerable because it had been done for so long already. They would simply be put back where they were. The man was sent back to where he was before;  where he could tell everything and have what he said, once again, fall on ears that cared little either way. His life made worse by the fact that even though it was a rare thing to have anyone hear him, that it would be so much better if they simply removed them all and had him scream in a perfectly clear voice to no one. Perfect truth, expressed perfectly, to nothing but the air that defined him.  Anyone who was even remotely comforted by the breeze he could make, sheltered into coves and bays where they become unnecessary.

     The woman, needed a different penance. She was surrounded again with a multitude of bodies and associations. Not simply those she had before, but more than she ever thought possible.  Some of them were critical and could not be ignored because they were as much a part of her as she was of them, But all of them refusing to ask anything, and not knowing her enough to care if she spoke or not. Some would be told not to ask, and still others wouldn't know what to ask even if they did care. She would go back to her bowls and cups and tinkle them together while she set the table for people who no longer had the need to hear her thoughts, and the man who came to love her would stand on a beach alone and feel the wind rip across an empty beach.
To each their own, and neither to their own wishes.    
     The mute man can not leave the beach to which he has been left. Even for as clear a voice as he has, he will not be heard above the tinkling of dishes nor through the water. He can not go to her for the throng of people that shield  her view of him.  But she will always have the ability to walk to the edge of the crowd on her own feet, and turn toward the sound of the wind. The air is always filled with the winds of change.