A String Around Her Finger

“Why did you go to Grandfather Mountain?” Mary asked.
“Originally?”
“No, this week,” she answered. I had been avoiding that, unsure of why. “Was it because of us?”
“Sammy died,” I answered. Mary’s hand went to her mouth.
“When?” Her eyes immediately got glassy, and pools began to build at the bottoms of them.
“Wednesday morning. His heart failed. He had been sick, but I didn’t know. He had quit going to the doctors, they said. He wanted to die at home. I went back when I found out, but I couldn’t stay. It was too much. Everything was towering up over me and falling in. It was like I was suffocating. So I left in the middle of the night and went to Grandfather. I couldn’t find any peace there though. I couldn’t find an anchor. I couldn’t feel a home.” Mary studied me intently for long moments, tears in her eyes. They were more for me than for Sammy. More for her?
“How much?” she asked. It was a curious question, but I understood.
“Everything is energy and energy eventually finds its balance.”
“It feels like you’ve been through a lot. How do you do it?” She wanted to know for herself…for her own silent struggle.
“I think that sometimes when you have great joy, maybe you also have to receive great pain. That all things reach a balance, and that this is the way it has to be. When I am thinking this, I remember that there are so many many ways to gain, but you can’t appreciate gain without loss. When you have gained something and then lose it, gain begins to mean more. Its meaning becomes deeper. And how many the ways of losing…” Mary was crying gently.
“But why?” she asked. I kept talking.
“Wouldn’t it be the same with love? With joy? We come back in either circles or spirals depending on whether we have learned enough to move forward, but always we come back and lose with a different quality. Always we come back and gain with a different quality. And then gain means more to us.”
“But for what?”
“Deeper and more expansive gratitude. To learn gratitude. Ever more appreciation. I think everything is about that. Eventually, gratitude without conditions. Finally, maybe Grace. I don’t know.” Mary stopped crying and studied me.
“Gratitude.” She said it as if the word was sinking in. Her face was so expressive.
“And then sometimes I can’t remember that. Sometimes I just have to run the trails…I have to run it out until I’m empty…sometimes I have to run whether I remember that or not. But I try to make it a living memory, where it stays in the foreground, so that I am conscious of it in those moments. So that I have perspective. I see that life has its rhythms and cycles. Love, like all things, is a game of musical chairs, and often I’m left standing, but the game will go ‘round again. And when I’m in great joy, I remember how temporary it will be. I see that it is supposed to be. I don’t hold on to it so tightly then. And when I am in great pain, and sometimes it’s smothering, I know now that it too belongs to the laws of cycles and periodicity. I try to remember that then. I know the pain is not permanent then. I don’t turn from it quite as much each time, wincing. I don’t close my eyes to it. I don’t panic. My vision expands.”
“How do you make it a living memory?” she asked quietly, looking down.
“If you can tie a string around your finger, you can do anything. I believe your mind is that powerful, and that your will is strong enough to harness that beast with only a string. It’s just habit, but you have to make it a habit – that is what you’re striving for. Small remembrances that become more frequent in time. Living Artfully. If you can steer your thoughts, you can steer your universe.” She studied me longer and I continued. “Imagine that this is going on all the time. That this is how tomorrow is created, every moment, a great spiritual vote, and each of us constantly casts our ballots with every thought, every word. Maybe there is nothing permanent. Certainly not buildings or nations. But I think our words are enduring. They are worth the effort. I think that they are as forever as it gets. Each conversation I have is registered in someone’s subconscious, and the same with me…always this way. Every word. Every detail. It informs in a large way, or in a miniscule way, every word that the person says for the rest of their lives. And the same with the next person they talk to, and it radiates out like that. I think of it like words living and evolving through us. Maybe I never have a conversation with one person, but am actually talking to the entire future…every person that person ever communicates with, and so on, and while these words and ideas grow and live through person after person, all the buildings crumble down. All the nations arise and fall.”
“What about God?” Mary asked.
“Maybe That’s in your intentions. The intentions that you’ll even lie to yourself about. All intentions can be reduced down to only two types – one unifies, Light; one divides, Darkness. Looked at that way, every breath, every thought, every moment – is a prayer. Every thought has an intention that brought it forth, and we vivify both Darkness and Light depending on our dispositions. Both gods. One, then the other. The one that receives the most energy, the most votes…that is the god that rules the moment that comes…tomorrow. We create tomorrow, with or without it being our intention, constantly. People that control large groups of people bring a lot of votes to their intentions.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” Mary said.
“You and your heart should find your own theory. It won’t mean anything until it is your own words. Your own discovery. Your own learning. Until then, it won’t mean anything.”
“It means something, Joe,” she said. I smiled at her kindness.
“Mary, you have all of this figured out better than the rest of us.” She laughed, but I meant it.
“A string?” she asked, incredulously.
“Something controls your train of thoughts. Why don’t you? Who put war there? Who put strife? Who put heartache there? Love? Do you choose your music to fit your mood, or do you choose your music to create your mood? Sad songs are beautiful, but they will make for a sad life when listened to enough. Lusts for violence beckon violence. Deep inside of you is a sort of creed and a little fits it. A lot really doesn’t when you sit with it long enough. Manage your thoughts and visualizations, using your creed as a means of measuring worth or integrity…and you are managing your own mind with aligned intentions. It is exactly this that causes worries to manifest into reality. Why not trade worry for love? Maybe world peace is literally one moment away, one alignment away. One thought, really. But I understand that it isn’t about world peace. It is about personal peace, and we can help nothing or no one without finding that peace within ourselves. What words are in your life? Which ones do you want to see more of?” Mary leaned across and kissed me so hard then with her wet, salty lips.
“What you think, you create,” she said. “A lot of people are saying that.” We were lounging on cushions and blankets at the foot of the fireplace. I looked for a long loose thread. My stuff is so tattered. I found one quickly, stretched it out, and then broke it.
“Give me your hand.” I tied the thread around a finger. “When you see this in the morning, it means Live Artfully. Considerately. Every motion is living art. Instead of trying to still your mind, how about you just remind the wandering beast, guide it, and plan your remembrances ahead of time? Everything here has been carefully arranged to bring my wandering mind back to having the thoughts I want to have. Unity. Maybe eventually the habit will become constant.”
“That’s beautiful,” Mary said, smiling. She rubbed her fingers across the string. “I understand now. How did you figure this out?”
“I didn’t. You try every turn in a maze until you find your way out. But like I said, none of this will really mean anything to you until you figure out your own words…relate to it in your own way. Let’s go to bed now.”