I have had a love affair with words all my life. One of my most powerful memories is of a
Carrie five years old, sitting cross-legged on a kindergarten floor, book open
in front of her, suddenly unlocking the mysteries of the words previously
locked from her, unfolding the story of a child’s bedtime. From that point on, words became my refuge,
my holy grail and my solace. Words
flowed into me like the rising tide of the ocean, creeping ever upward on a
beach, bringing beautiful trinkets from the deep, to be turned over, fondled
and set upon a shelf until the time came to pull them out again and use them to
define myself, and my world.
Words carried me through my formative years and into the
tumultuous years of puberty, when, it seemed, no one understood a word I said
sometimes, and I would take refuge in one of the journals that would someday
chronicle my growth much as time elapsed photography chronicles the unfolding
of a flower, or the growth of a sapling.
Words were the underlying current of my very foundation, no matter how
dank and musty that foundation might get, words were the pillars I set myself
on as I struggled to make rhyme or reason of my thoughts and feelings.
I had a sense of the power these words contained, even then,
but even after a lifetime’s onslaught of words that stung, that often took me
to my spiritual knees, I still did not fully realize the power of words. Unitl now.
There is always truth in what I write, but sometimes the truth is more
contained in the things I do not write; in the silence lying, impenetrable, between
the lines. These truths cannot be
written for the public eye, but only in my journal, or spoken deep in the
workings of my mind where they can hurt no one but myself, and there is no redemption
from these words. There is only the
boldfaced truth, freshly scrubbed and smarting, never to be seen by the likes
of this world until they are cajoled (and often dragged) out by only those
closest to my heart, to be examined and either mercifully accepted or, even
worse, rejected.
This love affair took me to South America, where I learned
word upon word in a different language, as many as I could fit in a mouthful at
any given moment. For what is language
if not more words, to be constructed in a whole new way, with new, beautiful
sounds and syllables traipsing off my tongue and teasing my brain like a New
York Times crossword puzzle? It has also
taken me to the darkest times I have ever known in my life, and I have felt
betrayed by the words that I also love like another child, or a spouse. For how can you feel truly betrayed by
something you do not love fully, and without reservation?
Words have been my safe harbor, tumbling out in the lines of
poetry, defining Me and my world with their boundless combinations and unending
variations, and flowing into me as a river spills into an ocean, feeding my
soul in ways that few other things can.
Words have, quite literally, saved my life – saved me from a depression
that has threaded its way through my veins like a drug at various points in my
life.
It was a simple phrase in a rote prayer that took me out of
the confines of the Catholic church and set me hurtling, a 13-year-old Black
sheep, onto a path of spiritual discovery that I am only now beginning to make
sense of. Words can be more powerful,
even, than a smack in the face, of that I have no doubt.
It is this love affair with words, I am only now coming to
understand at the tender age of 41,that has also prevented me from attaining
the very things I have sought since I was an early teen – a balance in myself between my faith and all
of the things that I eschew about that very word. For I have discovered that some things can
only be felt in the absence of words.
When we silence our minds, and our words, we only then begin to really
hear our hearts, and the Divinity that resides within. I am slowly learning this through a very
difficult time, when the words I love so very much seem to have betrayed
me. It is only when I can sit them aside
and lock them tight in a box that I can even begin to hear that which my heart
holds and I can see a clear path forward.
When I let the words back out, I lose focus, and the path becomes
muddied. So I have taken to sitting beside
my rose bush out back, after the morning rush of school and work departure has
subsided, and simply try to rid my mind of all these words, one by one, placing
them in that box until all I can hear is the sound of the birds and the hum of
a neighbor’s lawn mower. I try to hear
the Divinity I know is within my heart, because I have heard it before, in
those rare moments of stillness in my mind -
have felt it come crashing into me like the proverbial bull in a china
shop, blindsiding me with its fierce love and devotion. 
I have called this feeling many things in my lifetime,
always avoiding the moniker God because of its myriad connotations in my mind. I have called it the Sacred, the Divine, the
Universe, the Gods. But it is over the
past year that I realize that all these names all point to the same end, that
we all, whatever paths we choose, wind up ultimately at the same spot, and I
finally have become comfortable calling this thing God, and letting it into my
life as such. Funny how one word can be
so many things at once, yet the same thing.
And this thing, which I search for in the silence of my heart every
morning after I wake, has come to be that which sustains me, and keeps me sane,
in a way that all my words have failed to do.
That feeling of peace that I find each morning is all of the beautiful
words I know rolled into one and it is this beauty that I reach for when all my
words have failed me. For they do fail
me, sometimes, even in all their glorious beauty and poetry, when that
foundation upon which I have built myself buckles and it is the silence of my
heart that is my only recourse.
And so it is that you will find me, beside my rosebush in
the morning light, searching for that thing that is so much more than myself,
that is the essence of love and peace, yet myself at the same time. And you will hear no words.
