Words and soft hearts and where the words fail
I stand near a street corner as the rain starts to softly fall. Manhattan races all around me, but my eyes are glued to the small, bright screen of my phone. I am reading the transcript of an episode of This American Life and I am riveted. The episode is titled “The Words to Say It” and the first act follows the experience of a mother and news reporter from Gaza who was ultimately able to flee to Egypt with her husband and four children. Shortly after she arrived in Egypt, she stopped speaking. There were no words to capture what she had experienced and how she felt.
Ironically, as I wait for a friend and read, I stand outside the Strand Book Store. Just inside, rows and rows of books contain rows and rows of words, put together to convey thoughts, experiences, and feelings. I spent the past thirty minutes carefully selecting a few choices to bring home to my children who eagerly await my return tomorrow at the end of a work trip. As I prepared to leave Maine, on a crisp Monday morning surrounded by newly fallen snow, my daughter wrapped her arms around me tightly. “Please don’t go,” she whispered and tears started to fall.
Climate work took me to the big city in a quest for funding to demonstrate the merits of community-driven climate solutions, the type of solutions that transition off fossil fuels while also increasing equity, resilience, and empowerment. I have surprised myself by landing in a position of leadership in this work (my formal educational background is in philosophy and counseling psychology). I am asked to present and provide guidance.
These days, however, I have far more questions than answers. And, at the end of the questions, inevitably, is a place where words fail.
My friend startles my reading; I have been so engrossed, I did not even hear her arrival. We go to dinner, catching up, sharing the warmth of connection.
Later, as I fall asleep alone, I miss my children (who have, earlier that same day, let me know on a phone call that they are doing very well and didn’t miss me nearly as much as they had feared). I crave their wide openness and generous hearts. For the past 24 hours, I’ve whirled in a cocoon of ideas, here in this bustling city, and of so very many words. I’m now spun all the way to silence and, in that space, I yearn for the sweet, deep simplicity of my children’s love.
My son is four and my daughter is seven. We got here both slowly and very fast, as it happens. Some moments took years; some years flew by. They are both, in their own right, full of words as they ask big questions and think vast thoughts. Sometimes, they are certain they have all the answers. Sometimes, they are surprised by what they know.
Blessedly, they are both still so tender, full of what some would call naivete, a word we often throw out with negative implications. I witness their tenderness with appreciation, as a most precious gift. They understand things I no longer access with ease. Their kindness is tremendous. Their empathy is profound.
“Today, someone got hurt at school,” my daughter told us recently at the dinner table. “We all circled around her. We always do that when someone gets hurt.”
I can picture it. A child cries and a gaggle of small bodies forms around the hurt, eyes wide, holding through witnessing.
I think of the two little beings now asleep at home in Maine and the simple delights of their unfurling hours: a friend, a book, a fort in the woods. A first ski, a first piano lesson. The quest for fun, learning, and love. Such a privilege, this form of childhood, free from terror.
While university lectures and scholastic articles did their best to educate my mind, I cannot wrap my heart around how we got here. I cannot accept a right like a safe, soft childhood turning into a privilege. I seek answers and I watch my children do the same, albeit to different sorts of questions. I feel something within me whisper a reminder: keep feeling, keep the softness, keep the questions. This world jars against soft, loving hearts and breaks them wide open. We circle around the hurt, eyes wide, bearing witness and, no, it doesn’t make sense, not this hurt, not this time. But where comprehension ceases, hearts broken open can take over.
Note: On the topic of words and silence, a piece I wrote what feels like a lifetime ago might also be of interest. You can find “Listen” here.