Kindness

In which gifts are found in the aftermath.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

~Naomi Shihab Nye

As the tidal wave of the past year slowly starts to ebb, I walk the beach of my current existence, and find myself filling with gratitude for the shining treasures hurled to land by the disaster. I count my blessings (in no particular order): 

One: The extraordinary new-friend-I-feel-I-have-known-forever, my Sister, who swam up through the unspeakable traumas in her own life to walk with me for miles through our neighborhood, talking and soothing, who brought me warm food fresh from her kitchen, and so many living green things, for planting and for comfort.

Two: Another walking companion, an exquisite listener and gentle spirit, who moved to my neighborhood not long before the pandemic, and even though I was a stranger, saw me hurting and pulled me into her lifeboat.

Three: The 50% Club – three women all in the preliminary throes of divorce or living in its aftermath, who showed up again and again and again when I needed them. All old friends/neighbors, and all of them also new to my life in this powerful way. Evenings with one or all of them around the fire pit are among my sweetest memories from this blistering year.

Four: A beautiful friend rediscovered in long hours on the phone in our empty houses hundreds of miles apart, talking about everything and anything, lifting each other up out of the terrible depths. Her gentle voice in my ear, as I’m sobbing too hard to speak, has been the very essence of the word blessing.

Five: My freshman year college roommate and her partner, making time for long storytelling visits, and reminding me that stories and laughter are healing forces.

Six: Two wise men (and wise guys!), distant college acquaintances, crossing electronic distances to wrap warm arms around me after many years without contact, sharing their own pain-wracked stories and hard-won wisdom to help me find the meaning and the hope in my struggles.

Seven: A beautiful array of new friends and old, each watching their own relationships ending, talking through the hurt with compassion and courage, offering strength to carry me through.

Eight: A countless number of lovely souls, tracing back all the way to my oldest friend, finding creative ways to connect with me despite the pandemic’s forced separation, calling and checking in and setting up video chats and walks and evenings outside, and filling my days – especially the lonely ones – with encouragement and happiness.

Nine: My sweet father, fighting through his own suffering to love and comfort me the way only a parent can. And my siblings, offering kindness too, across the distances between us.

Ten: My dear friend across the ocean, steadfastly writing to me every single day, teaching me over and over that the world is beautiful, and that gratitude is a balm.

Eleven: My sweet pup, who embodies unconditional love (with a soupçon of mischief). 

Twelve: My amazing therapist, who embodies unconditional support (with a soupçon of mischief ☺). 

Thirteen: My meditation practice, which will keep getting stronger, I believe. And the many books and teachings recommended or gifted by loved ones, that have gently reoriented, and maybe even saved, my life.

And last, but definitely not least: My extraordinary daughters, with their intuitive empathy and bubbling joy and wacky expressions of love. (Witness: Vee at age six, saying to me in a voice full of gratitude and patronage, “Mama, you're not just a servant...you're part of the family!") If there is a shred of kindness to be found in this world, they will lift it in their sweet, grubby hands and bring it to me, and fairly thrum with delight when they see me thrill to receive it.

Vee and Annie with the flowers they asked their dad to help them buy for me last night, just to cheer me up after a brutal few weeks.

There isn’t nearly space nor time enough to detail every extraordinary kindness that has come my way lately, or how I have been stunned over and over by the generous goodness of such a multitude of people, many of whom have selflessly put aside their own crushing traumas to comfort and nurture me. Can you imagine? It blows my mind that so many paragons of grace and strength have rowed their boats through the tsunami waves in their own lives to care for me in my hour(s) of need. How did I ever get so lucky?

In pondering this beautiful mystery, I came across Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, The Lesson, which resonated:

My cot was down by a cypress grove,
And I sat by my window the whole night long,
And heard well up from the deep dark wood
A mocking–bird’s passionate song.

And I thought of myself so sad and lone,
And my life’s cold winter that knew no spring;
Of my mind so weary and sick and wild,
Of my heart too sad to sing.

But e’en as I listened the mock–bird’s song,
A thought stole into my saddened heart,
And I said, “I can cheer some other soul
By a carol’s simple art.”

For oft from the darkness of hearts and lives
Come songs that brim with joy and light,
As out of the gloom of the cypress grove
The mocking–bird sings at night.

So I sang a lay for a brother’s ear
In a strain to soothe his bleeding heart,
And he smiled at the sound of my voice and lyre,
Though mine was a feeble art.

But at his smile I smiled in turn,
And into my soul there came a ray:
In trying to soothe another’s woes
Mine own had passed away.

And so, as I walk the beach, among the dazzling shells and the subtle and exquisite pebbles of sea glass – each a moment of grace in a sorrow-filled stretch of my life – I feel the very meaning and essence of kindness growing in me, nurtured and sparked by the countless gifts I have received in these past terrible months. And, feeling this warmth taking hold in my very bones, in my cells, I will do my best in turn to send love and tenderness in all directions. May all of you who have suffered loss or pain find kindness in abundance, and feel it with you always, like a shadow, or a friend.