Words That Set Us Free

In shaky moments, how often has someone tried to cheer you with platitudes like ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, or ‘things could be worse’?

They’re just words. Irritating. You brush them off. How can words help when you’re overwhelmed by chaos and feelings of helplessness, while events beyond your control seem to spin around you, whipping you off balance?

Last year I lost my belongings when a self-storage facility burned to the ground. The news was relayed by email the day after the event. Then followed a painful and arduous process during which I struggled to mentally collate and quantify my suddenly non-existent physical history, assigning a numerical value to heaps of priceless possessions.

How could I rightly place such a figure on a beautiful woodcarving of a bird crafted by my mother; her diaries; an entire family archive of keepsakes and yet-unscanned photos; beloved gifts; every piece of art I’d ever created; and within that hoard of everything upon everything, boxes and boxes of written work? And of course there was my huge book collection, stacked carefully in towering crates. I’d lost practical things like clothes and household goods, but how much wisdom had I lost in that library alone? Some of the books I had yet to read.

I felt as if I had ceased to exist before the present, as proof of my earlier existence was gone. Strangely, though, it seemed to me that everything was still there, in my unit. I could see it all, preserved in a dimension I couldn’t reach or touch, but where I could still hear the rattle of shutters, and even smell the familiar, vaguely metallic, air. How much of ourselves is contained in the things we have, or had? How do those items define us, and why do they bring us such comfort? Eventually, we will be gone, and our possessions too, or they may be so far separated from us in coming years that no connection will ever be remembered.

Now, eighteen months later, I find myself again in a whirlwind. At first, I fight it, but then become calm. Once more, it’s loss - or more truly, radical change - and I’m asking a similar question. What portion of ourselves is shaped, preserved, or even trapped, in all that we’ve done, in the days, months and years that we’ve spent, and the things we’ve devoted our time to? I’m at a pivotal moment in my life. I’m on the edge. Steady ground has crumbled away. As I reflect again on my past, and project into the future, I falter. I’m scared to take the next step. I remind myself that there is only this moment, and this space: a place to grow. I feel a sudden sense of freedom. I’m ready to spread my wings.

I do my qigong form in the morning, while the mist hangs low in the fields. I feed the birds before breakfast, soothed by their presence. I talk to the sheep who’ve run to the fence for a scratch. They munch the grass, at peace, because they don’t know what’s coming: their eventual, inevitable fate. They approach me with eager, snuffling noses, take cauliflower leaves from my hands and crunch the juicy stems.

I allow my mind to wander, then turn to words from the Tao Te Ching:

Be content with what you have;

Rejoice in the way things are.

When you realise there is nothing lacking,

The whole world belongs to you. *

*Translation by Stephen Mitchell