Stick with this to the finish…
Thank you Susan
Tag: friend
The blind man himself saw, and the sighted one close behind him knew it
In order to guide me better, Jean had invented a code. The pressure of his hand on my right shoulder meant: “Slope on the right. Shift the weight of your body to the left,” and vice versa. Pressure in the middle of my back said: “No danger in a straight line in front of you. We can walk faster.” Pressure on my back but on the left side was a warning: “Slow up! Right turn ahead.” And when the weight of his hand became heavier, it was because the turn ahead was a hairpin bend…
Jean and I ran into a hard fact — the fact that limits do not exist. If there are any, they are never the ones they taught us. People around us seemed satisfied when they said that a lame man walks with a limp, that a blind man does not see, that a child is not old enough to understand, that life ends with death. For the two of us, in our summer of green fields, twilight and dawn continually revolving, none of these statements stood its ground. We had friendship on our side. We had ignorance and bliss, and we looked at everything through these channels. They taught us all we knew. The blind man himself saw, and the sighted one close behind him knew it. Life was good, very good.
~ Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II
Notes:
- Photo: What you see is what you get by Dragan Todorović (Belgrade, Serbia)
- Related Posts: Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light
Walking Cross-Town. With Smoke.
The bi-fold doors open.
We spill out of the train into the underground tunnel at Grand Central. It’s Monday morning.
I’m walking briskly in a free lane. Not exactly free. Under foot is a yellow warning strip, with hundreds of half-moons of steel affixed to the two-foot corrugated shoulder on a highway warning of trouble. My eyes bob ahead and down, wary, looking to avoid toppling down eight feet onto the empty tracks. Livin‘ la Vida Loca.
I bear down on a commuter who is ambling along. Buddy, move left. I’m on his heals. Compressed air is released from the lungs, the Jake brake is pulled, the exhaust valves fly open, the big rig vibrates, rattles and slows.
He has thick soles, black lace-up orthopedic shoes. He is limping badly. Vet? Amputee? Back injury? I cannot pass him on my left, commuters are thick.
And then it comes. A memory, smoke grasped… Continue reading “Walking Cross-Town. With Smoke.”
Rollin’ with Tumbleweeds
He called looking for a sounding board.
I’ve been offered a job. We’d have to move North…
I push my chair away from the desk, lean back, and lean in.
More money….Bigger job…Great company…
He’s a kid again, bubbly about his shiny, new red Schwinn.
I’ve been here for 14 years. I’m stale. I need a change.
Like the Blue Moon, he beams down triennially with the same bright light.
The kids are in college. They’re not holding us down here any longer. Jane tells me to do what I think is right.
He’s seeking counsel from a Corporate Gypsy, who’s been unwavering in the triennial counsel: “Go.” But he doesn’t interrupt.
But…
Here it comes. The Gates are coming down… Continue reading “Rollin’ with Tumbleweeds”
Friend
I have no idea how he knows when I need him.
We can go weeks without speaking,
and then, when my blue moods threaten to turn black,
he will show up and tell me my moods are:
azure,
indigo,
cerulean,
cobalt,
periwinkle–
and suddenly the blue will not seem so dark,
more like the color of a noon-bright sky.
He brings the sun.
— David Levithan, The Realm of Possibility
Notes:
- Credits: Poem – thesensualstarfish; Photo – Cerulean Circles
- Post inspired by Brain Pickings’ share: David Whyte on True Meaning of Friendship
The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence. […] But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.
~ David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words