Smothering Understandings

 Since morning, my sister has been talking a lot about understanding things. I was puzzled why she would take so much effort, take a flight from another state during these pandemic times with the sole purpose of seeing me. Well, of course, she loves me. Love, of course. For a very long time, I had imagined love is the driving force for everything in this world. So yes, love...of course. She said she needs clarity to find her own path. She said I am the most lost person she has ever known. She said it is an irony that she comes to the most lost person to find answers concerning clarity and paths, but it is true. She said it is mostly about understanding.

Based on understanding, she spoke of stability, of long-term, of certainty, of knowledge, of spirituality, of calmness. Upon such a whirlwind of words, she seemed to be building castles of salvation. This time I did not just speak. I listened to myself as I uttered many words of not understanding. I wondered if that is what she wanted to hear from me. Every single time, as I burnt her castles of structure, logic, and intellect, I said “this does not make sense, does it?” and I uttered more words of grief, “It is very sad that this does not make sense at all. Do you think it is about making sense at all?”

This is where our conversations truly began and the rhythm is familiar. All of this has been repeated many times before and it keeps repeating, as I keep smothering her light into the womb of darkness. Different words, probably different riddles, and puzzles but this has all become so predictable now as the pendulum swings between our understandings and not understandings.

I told her many stories. Most concluding with strong philosophical statements. As if every letter of my story could build her a temple of all the understandings that she had ever craved for. I could see her listening to me with hope, light, and optimism. Mother used to sometimes call me the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I think that is how I led people, with these stories that give hope, light, and optimism. Rarely, I concluded because most times others would jump to their conclusions. The times when I concluded, I did out of necessity, as the conversations demanded some explanation, some elaboration, some analysis, and some understandings. This is when I looked into her eyes and waited a while quietly. I said, “It is always very personal. So, nothing makes sense.” That is when I smothered the hope, light, and optimism in her. I led her to the womb of darkness, contemplating rebirth.

“You see how divine this darkness is? Someone close to you leaves you someday and the next day you feel you want to understand the universe. Tell me honestly, what is this about? Truly.”

In this divine darkness, everything is personal. Cosmic order is constructed for this personal cause when chaos swallows me. I proceed carefully. I tell her about how John had once made a distinction between quiet and silence. I explain softly and slowly

how quiet is full to the brim, about to outburst but does not. I explain how quiet is calm and content. How silence is empty and how I have been talking of quiet all this time and not silence. She said, “I want to understand all these things, everything”. I replied, “You will still not understand why she left you, isn’t that what you want to know?” Everytime I uttered personal, I saw her soul clenching its teeth.

Where is this coming from?

The pendulum swung between many such understandings and not understandings. I listened to myself more. I listened to how I asserted a sense of futility into her. I listened to how I filled her atmosphere with words and more words, she called them wisdom,
I said wisdom is silent, she called them understandings and I struck a deal with not understandings, she said thoughts and I cried feelings...the music went on..so on and so forth. Repetitions sculpting out paths from the womb of divine darkness. High abstractions and high equations flying out of our minds....smothering our most concrete experiences, smothering all that could have been hope, light, and life.

Grief asked for an explanation. Grief looked at me, asking me for an answer. Who am I but a lost man? What would I know of explanations? I conclude how I have given up. This is not a fight. I had wrongly imagined everything. I was about to tell her that I can give her no more than this whole tour about showing all that it could be and how everything falls in place. How everything is beautifully ordered, how there is an answer when there is an order and finally tell her how it is all ordered in an arrangement to deprive us of understandings. I could not speak this last line. I fell quiet and truly this does not make sense. The sun will rise again and I will be waiting for a call from my loved one, while this pendulum swings between understandings and not understandings.