Surfing

Monday, 21 September 2009 16:27 Written by Lezlie Laws

Last night, at a party at Phil Deaver’s house, Carol Frost said to me, “Some things are just a mystery.  You won’t be able to explain this.”   She was listening to me attempt to console a colleague who had just experienced the break-up of a year-long relationship.

     I kept thinking about those words late into the night, and hearing them helped me see a pattern—my enormous need for explanation. Yes, yes, there it is again.  Fairly relentless.  Maybe part of the reason I became a teacher.  Somewhere along the line I caught the assumption that things can be figured out, or at least grappled with in some coherent manner.  This assumption, taken to its worst conclusion, becomes a desire to fix things.  So like last night, as I was watching my colleague’s sadness rise and fall through the evening, big tears welling, I so wanted to help her, to say something that would make sense of her experience, or give her some kind of guidance, some understanding. There must be some way to frame this event that makes it acceptable.  It's a pattern of mine, of course, one that rises in me like a relentless wave. I'm learning how to ride that wave.  I try to practice benign silence.

     As I rode through the night, I assumed Carol was right.  Of course she’s right, I thought, impatient with myself.  Love is a mystery.  You can’t even get love issues straight for yourself, so why are you trying to figure it out for a thirty-year-old woman?   Some things are simply mysterious.  I wanted to rest into that conclusion.  In a way, it would be easier.  Just give up trying to understand. There is no figuring things out, Lezlie, just accept it.  Carol’s face was so serene when she spoke.  Her words must surely be true.  In the early morning hours, I could feel myself in calmer waters.

    But now, it’s Sunday, and sunny outside, and the day is urging me forward.  The old need is rising again.  The doubt returns as that wave begins to build.  “Is Carol right?” I wonder.  Must we resign ourselves to this dark room of mystery?  Or is that an easy way to avoid doing the work?  I have this fear of not making the appropriate effort to know what can be known, to live what can be lived.  When do I succumb to mystery and when do I push toward understanding?  Or. . . do I reside in the middle of those two positions?  A surfer riding the enormous, unfathomable force of a wave but bringing my own facility of balance and focus to the board.