waiting

by kye on August 20, 2009

I’m waiting for S. to decide if he’s staying or going.

He had been separated from his wife for several years when we met. At first, he was eager to complete the process of severing their lives.

But recently, on the other side of a birthday and a serious illness, he’s started feeling old.

He wonders if it would be best to finish what he’s started… if he would lose contact with children now grown… if he has it in him any more.  He’s tired.

It’s tempting to check email after this last long silence, but more sane to put my weight down into other things. I go for long walks, feeling each step’s intricate relationship with the ground, breathing in-three-pause-five-out-eight.

I move to a new studio… clear the clutter from my writing room… pick up the last vegetables from the farm…

…I’m waiting without waiting.

Tagged as: grief, the unknown

  • http://www.zentangodeoscarwright.com oscar wright

    Hi Kye, your writings are magnificent…these are precisely the issues I have given alot of thought to and continue to pursue. I believe that probabaly the only that the only thing that can render a person trully happy is to learn to love; to love totally and selflessly. I try to instill this in my tango students and I use, among other things, ZEN concepts to help me.

    The best metaphor for my tango is the art of Ikebana. In Ikebana few flowers are used and each piece has an exact place to be; to be placed to be designed. The empty space is important in Ikebana; it is visualized and the design is done with it in mind… the empty space are the pauses in dance. .. Zen art attempts to reach the essential by eliminating anything that is not absolutely necessary
    The key is for people to overcome fears and obstacles and abandon. I begin with deep breathing, eyes closed, visualizing movement in perfect equilibrium…visualizing creating colors with our bodys. To reach this point, you have to be in tango; You have to be tango
    I often tell my students that while we dance we create colors. The goal is for our bodies to become like the fine brush of a pen.

    There is so much more to say. I am writing an article for several blogs and I shall share that with you when it is done.

    By the way, I taught tango in San Antonio at a club of 410 whose name I don’t remember. I am originally from Austin. Come visit me in Rome and perhaps take a lesson from me. Here is my latest video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-5X1VPtwec

  • kye

    Hi Oscar… and yes! Your use of Ikebana as metaphor is illuminating. It’s a pretty good description of how I am writing, too.

    Many many years ago, at a taiji seminar, I had my first tango lesson. One of the participants taught both tango and taiji. He showed us how to dance as if the tango was an extension of push hands practice.

    Master Yang, our teacher, clearly already knew this. Watching him tango was like watching an incandescent light bulb float. That’s when I got bit.

    When I returned home I took lessons for a while. Then the need to begin a new life post-divorce intervened. It’s been a long long time now–but lately, the dance has been starting to reel me back in. A zen tango lesson would be a fitting beginning to a new tango adventure: perhaps I will find myself in Rome :)

    I’m looking forward to your article.

    Kye

  • http://www.zentangodeoscarwright.com oscar wright

    Your musing are lovely and peotic Kye…in these brief paragraphs you somwhow captured life’s essence…ah! love, that waiting, the emptiness, the sweetness, the gazing across the ocean and letting the sound of the waves calm us…

    the gazing into the heavens, the strars, looking for that falling one…ah, there is hope…

    you soul is tender…my favorite poet is Nazim Hikmet, do you know him:

    “I love you
    like dipping bread into salt and eating
    Like waking up at night with high fever
    and drinking water, with the tap in my mouth
    Like unwrapping the heavy box from the postman
    with no clue what it is
    fluttering, happy, doubtful
    I love you
    like flying over the sea in a plane for the first time
    Like something moves inside me
    when it gets dark softly in Istanbul
    I love you
    Like thanking God that we live”

    come to Rome NOW !

  • http://www.PersonalDevelopmentPro.Net Karlil

    In many way i can relate to the story. Somehow i’m waiting for the phone call that never comes and somehow i’m not. Waiting and not waiting. I can feel the sadness in your writing. But i can also sense a strong woman behind the pen. Great post Kye. Short and touches the heart.

  • http://www.scribeforthetribe.com Charley

    Hi Kye,

    I do love your writing. I’m stating something that I’m sure you’ve been told many times before, but your words, your phrasing are so poetic. It’s the space between the words, between the thoughts that is most intriguing.

    Promise to keep writing and I will keep reading.

    -Charley

  • kye

    Oscar, no I didn’t know Nazim Hikmet. This is a wonderful poem! The first line reminds me a bit of Rumi. The whole of it is so evocative though, of the experience of loving.

    I read ‘come to Rome NOW’ and feel tickled and rosy at the compliment. But… I’m saying yes to finishing the painting I promised before the end of the year, and also to going to Denver to take care of my sister while her husband is gone.

    …Not so fun as tango in Rome! –but I can’t tell you how grateful I am that she’s alive and I have the opportunity. So I will be very happy to get on that plane, and to do whatever needs to be done after I’m on the ground.

  • kye

    Thank you, Karlil. I feel seen in both the sadness and the strength :)

  • kye

    Ah, thank you Charley for noting the space between –yes!
    …Keep reading and I promise to keep writing :)

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