Seeing, Feeling, Breathing

Tonight, I was speaking to a young boy: one who has spent the last three years in Turkey with his family, and who is delightful; often-smiling, intelligent-eyed.

My sister asked him what Gallipoli was like. It was a rather abrupt question. I would not have thought to ask it, and yet, I was intrigued by the coming answer. The events that occurred on that steep, rocky hillside and skinny beach have always fascinated me. The terror, bravery, anguish, honour. . . I am struck by that inevitable and useless loss of human life. The way men survived, (or did not survive) through it will continue to arrest my attention for years to come.

I knew what would be said in answer to my sister's question. Gallipoli is a beachy cove, rocky hills, blue sea.

But even though I had inwardly asked the question, I knew I would not get the answer I wanted.

The answer I wanted could not be worded. The answer to the question, "What was Gallipoli like?" Is to go there myself; to walk along the slim strip of beach; to drink in the blue and grey tones of the sea and feel the hot air mix with the breeze that comes sweeping off the ocean with a tumbling, gentle glimpse of the significant past; to climb one of the dirty hills, never mind the dusty slopes, just for the sheer beauty of knowing how the soldiers did it in 1915, though without the inescapable gunfire and panic.

I want to see, and feel, and breathe in that place. I want to know; to really know the answer to the question.

And the answer to every question like it.

What is Gallipoli like? Well.

                                     I might just have to go and see.

Stream of Consciousness: Reflections

Sometimes you don't need another human being to explore life, and love, and poetry. It is on days when no one is around (or when I forget that they are) that I remember this.

Then I talk to myself.

“Here, read this.”

“This? What is it?”

“A poem by Robert Frost. It’s called ‘For Once, Then, Something.”

“What’s it about?”

“A water well, I think, but knowing Robert Frost, I’d say it’s about more than that.”

“Pass it here, then. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .hm. Nice .  .  .No, pensive.”

“Hm. I s’pose. What do you think he’s saying, though? Why look for the water beyond the reflection and then write a poem about what you saw when you glimpsed beyond it?”

“You already said that you don’t really think it’s about the well or the water. I agree with you. Why else would he have added ‘truth’ to the short list of things it might’ve been that he saw for a moment?”

“You think it’s about truth?”

“No.  .  .Yes; Well, I’m not certain. But you can’t see truth, so it’s not as if he could have, staring into the well. He’s brought our attention to that quite deliberately. It sticks out.”

“Yes. It’s almost as if Frost never had this experience at all, but that it’s a metaphor for another that he did have.”

“Or he had them both.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

“The reflection masks the water. That’s what he’s saying isn’t it?”

“Water isn’t the only thing that wears a mask. Who-”

“People.  .  .  .people do.”

“Hm. He doesn’t mean a physical mask, though.”

“Oh, of course not, no.”

“I think he’s talking about ‘perceiving people’ in metaphor.”

“Among other things.”

“Yes, but mainly people.”

“Hmm. We do wear masks, don’t we? All of us. I guess that’s what life is about. Getting close enough to people you love, so eventually they get comfortable enough to-“

“-To take their mask off. If only just for you.”

“Yes.”

“You were right. It’s not just about a well. It is about discovering truth.”

“The truth about people.”

“Truth that can be just as soon obscured as revealed.”

“The truth about me.”

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs

Always wrong to the light, so never seeing

Deeper down in the well than where the water

Gives me back in a shining surface picture

Me myself in the summer heaven godlike

Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.

Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,

I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,

Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,

Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.

Water came to rebuke the too clear water.

One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple

Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,

Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?

Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

-Robert Frost

The Inadequacy Of Labels

I'm not the only person who has noticed this. Labels change how we view people. It takes about five minutes after we have met someone to form an opinion of them. Five minutes to put them in a box. Five minutes for us to make them 'fit' somewhere in our heads. "Creative." "Chick magnet." "Nice girl." "The Extrovert." "The quiet one." It's not always bad to 'label' people. If they're creative then they're creative, yes? But it's not always good, either.

I think sometimes we trap the deeper and more complex parts of our aquaintances in these boxes. In making them fit into our one, non-comprehensive label, we abandon any other characteristics they may have as less important, and not as much a part of 'them'. Yes, your new aquaintance is an extrovert. So? Half the population of the planet is too. She is not 'the extrovert', she is 'an extrovert'. Congratulations. Well done. Your skills of perception are unrivalled.

No.

Before you label her on sight, go deeper. Go deeper with everyone. There is more to every person in the universe than meets or has met the eye, even after years and years of aquaintance. Don't box a complex soul into a single word or few. It isn't right.

Not only that.

Labelling others doesn't just affect our perception of them, it affects their perception of themselves. When someone is categorised as one thing over and over and over again, they begin to doubt their ability to be anything else. The label becomes an identity, and it is hard to escape. Being called Leslie all your life makes it difficult to come to terms with the fact that you are actually a Helen.

Do you see?

Labels are not only entirely inadequate to capture, in full, 'the person'. They are also, most often,

Wrong.

Those Days

Everybody has those days, I guess. The days when being cheerful is harder than some make it out to be; the days when the words 'war' and 'broken' and 'hurt' make you want to cry; the days when the Sun isn't shining, when you want to click your fingers and make some things disappear; the days when you don't think that you have much good in yourself at all. The days when you've kind of forgotten how to love.

A friend wrote me a letter a short time ago that seemed to paint my heart in the words that were written there. 'Perhaps I got proud... and I've hit smack-bang into a brick wall. I need to pull my socks up, but it seems their elastic is gone and they will keep slipping down.'

There.

And I ache in those days, because I sense that perhaps...I am the problem. The re-ocurring reproach of my life appears again: 'Circumstance does not make you who you are. You make you who you are.' So stop sulking and change things.

No. I can't do that. Not always.

But so much more comfort can be found without pondering hopeless self-help. Jesus makes me who I am. I believe in him. And the Bible says beautiful, true things about righteousness and Jesus, and belief. And so much is relevant to me. To you.

Romans 4:3 is beautiful, paraphrased this way: '[Imogen] believed God, and it was counted to [her] as righteousness.