kindness

Musical Tears

~ Emma ~ Leave a comment

You snuck in to come find me.
I’m leaving, moving, there’s another place I need to be.
The music is loud, pumping dramatic beats.
I can see you over there, you are scanning the crowd, my body heats.

“He’s here, he wants to talk to you, say a last goodbye.” Says a friend of mine.
“I don’t think I can, it’s too hard, I’m a mess, what if…I think I just need a sign.”
“He is your sign, he showed up tonight, he knows you’re leaving, he’s only here for you, you can do this, it’s only nine.”
“Ok, can you stay close when he comes, I need to know you’re here, just don’t listen but be near.”

The colourful light beams frolicking throughout this massive, high ceiling room.
Chest is heavy, mind is spinning, I want to dance but I’m staring at you from a distance, you search the crowd for my gaze, I cannot swoon.
Deep breath, boom, your piercing denim blues finally match my zoom.
Our eyes are locked, you put down your drink and push your way through the sea of fantastical dancing souls to come to me.
In this secret little corner, I am to cry very soon.

The DJ changes his tune something earthy and mysterious now, this is my vibing.
Your walk to me feels like it’s taking a decade, your eyes are sweet and you’re smiling.
I can hear them already, the descriptive way your blues speak, they say, “please stay, I know you won’t, I know you can’t, but please know I think of you every single day.”
You’re here now, at the table I sit, you across from me, I can’t stay still, I must shift.

Elbows on the table, forearms down, your palms face up in front of us. I know this move, your usual gesture.
It says with such clarity and ease, “Put your hands in mine, I am open, safe and here to listen to all that you say.”
I slowly bring my hands to meet yours knowing the second we touch, this interaction, much harder. I will keep my words steady and continue on my way.

Your eyes reaching inside, they always find my soul with every breath, every loud pause,
never leaving mine, not even for a second to look around, to be distracted. You calmly ask about the cause.
I try to explain, both of our palms now sweaty, holding tighter. I tell you how I am broken down by the laws.
The kind and loving way you listen and hold my shaking hands, you don’t see my flaws.

I can’t bear to look away from you for soon our eyes will never meet again.
I’m soaking this up, relishing, dancing in your gaze, devouring every blink trying to make them tandem, so I never miss a thing.
We are surrounded by a sea of loud movement yet, the room feels empty and quiet, very still.
The beats pulsing our blood, the music consuming our veins, we are a thrill.

I must convey my gratitude, my love and my pain.
You haven’t said much, I know you’re waiting and feeling quite slain.
The way you’re looking at me tonight is different, it’s desperate to make me stay.
I am stepping towards a future of new, a new day with a new way.

The tears pooling in your eyes, one, two, three drops as they fall down your dewy, glowing cheeks. You’re still smiling, but crying a soft tune.
I want to brush the tears from your face, I want to kiss them and taste the salty liquid of you one more time.
My heart can’t take this, watching you cry I need to bring you closer so our hearts can break together, and then somehow, attempt to take off and fly.

My mind searches for a memory we shared,
to take me away just for a moment from this present hurt.
That time you were so sweaty and frazzled and I tore off your shirt.
I inch closer, you pull me in a bit, I lean, I can’t help but let you hold me harder and nearer, but there cannot be an ounce of flirt or the slightest scene.
Except it’s too late, our souls were meant to roll around in the sun and in the dirt. What does it all mean?

Your hand reaches over to my face, cups my chin and my cheek softly, your head leans to one side.
This body language of surrender and acceptance amidst the chaos from this stormy tide.
Our hands part, leave one another for the last time.
Am I making a mistake? No. I am not ok, but I am going to be just fine.

I could stare at your face all night but I need to push you away now, so I can regain and recenter my sight.
You stand up to leave and I stay sitting.
My heart is beating too fast, I’m panicking and losing my might.
You come around the table towards me, this is fitting, I think I’m tripping, it’s a fright.

Standing beside me now eyes still locked, I can sense you’re thinking, wondering…I feel rocked.
Your breathing is short, your chest raising fast, the light quickly shines on us, one bold move and your hands grip my face, our lips collide, our tongues embrace.
This feels necessary, it’s perfect, to have this kiss to end the night.
It feels sad and painful, with yearning, but it’s nothing less than very right.

Our lips glued together like magnetic fields,
I know we have to stop, slow down,
I didn’t have time to reach for and hold up my shield.
Oh well, let this kiss imprint my body and soul. Let it drip with emotion and passion and then let it roam.
Let it run, keep going, harder, sweeter, longer, more, because when we stop, I will let go and I will go home.

Your hands leave my face and our lips depart.
You step away, tears still inside your heart.
No more words, just intense stares.
Five, six, seven seconds pass, you don’t look away, so full of care.
You hesitate to turn, try to walk away but something is holding you, I want you to share, I want you to say.
I want you to stay, I want you to walk away.

You wipe the wet from your eyes and turn your back to me in a strange disguise.
Thank you sweet man, you are forever a treasure that felt much like a prize.
Here we go now we can rise above the clouds and the stars because we know now the highs and the tries and what is forever ours.
Watching you disappear into the crowd, the music knows that it’s over.
I am alone now, sitting here with my wise and my cries. Then…one last look, over your shoulder.

Mr. J

~ Emma ~ 1 Comment

Today I had the pleasure of having a great conversation with a lovely man. I’ll call him Mr. J. We live in the same apartment building and our paths crossed in the lobby as I was going out and he was coming in and, after three minutes of “lobby talk” we decided to go sit outside and chat some more. We sat in the cold next to the fake plants near the entrance of the building talking about “stuff” and watching people come and go.

He was telling me about his chronic health condition and I had some interesting and helpful ideas I thought he could try. He’s a very nice man, we’ve had several brief chit chat sessions before, but this talk was the longest one yet. His appointment with his Dr. is coming up soon and the last time I bumped into him before Christmas, afterwards I had made a mental note to follow up with him about the Oximeter device I suggested he get to monitor his blood oxygen level. He appreciated the suggestion and also found it pretty amusing that his Dr. had never mentioned anything like this to him.

Mr J. is a confident, talkative, kind, engaging and energetic 73 year old Austrian gentleman with thick skin and a very soft, sweet heart and an infectious smile. As we sat on the little ledge there together, he told me about his past as a child growing up quite poor looking after his younger brother while his Mother worked to provide for them. He told me about the holes in the soles of his shoes and how he tried to hide them using tape when he went to school. And he talked about a few of the sufferings he’s experienced in his life and he gave me his opinion on Dr.’s and healthcare, an opinion in which I shared.

The attitude he chooses to embrace his story is what really gets me flying. Attitude is everything someone once told me, and I’ve carried that simple phrase with me my entire life.

The ideas I had about the changes he could make to his lifestyle in order to reduce his symptoms and the level of suffering he experiences, had him quite curious and intrigued. He was pretty locked in to what I was saying, I wanted to see how far I could go and how much he would absorb. If it wasn’t for the light changing from day to night, we would have continued talking there in the cold for hours I imagine.

He began to tell me that the changes he would need to make in order to feel better would bring much suffering to his life. “I’ll have to give up this and that, and it won’t be the same as this or that, and I’m 73! I’m already set in my ways and making changes like this will be so hard and require a lot of willpower and discipline, I just don’t think I have it in me”. I appreciated his brutal honesty. I told him that I really understood, change is hard, uncomfortable, it’s definitely not cozy and it sounded like he was content on living with his symptoms. Habits are hard to change at any age and I told him that if he looked more intimately at the relationship he has with himself, that it would help to change the relationship he has with his specific problem and that choosing something different and new takes great courage, and that courage is already alive and well inside him.

Then I asked him if the level or degree of suffering from making the changes I was talking about, would be higher or lower, more intense or just so so compared to the suffering he has already gone through in his life. I tried to drill into his mind that I was trying to help remove some of his suffering and not cause more of it, and that sacrificing things comes with the territory on the road to suffering less. He didn’t speak for a moment after that, and he looked straight at me and I could tell he was deep in thought about this. He replied that this change would not be as intense or as difficult as those other sufferings he’s lived through. He had a smirk on his face now as he was looking at me. I think he figured out I really knew what I was talking about and, I kept smiling, as I do.

Emotional attunement and co-regulation is highly underrated and vastly difficult to come across these days. And I found some of this today with Mr. J. Our energies had the same colour and vibration, and my intuition told me to hang on and spend a little more time with him. He was giving to me, just as much as I was giving to him, and it was such a pleasant dance.

He wasn’t interested in scampering off either. He did have an agenda, as did I. Yet we made a choice to take this time to sit here speaking our truth, holding space for one other and letting it flow in simple, honest harmony. I don’t have chats like this enough. It’s chats like this, listening, agreeing, disagreeing, empathizing, using genuine empathetic mirroring, inquiring, complimenting and simply appreciating and admiring one another for being so authentic and true, that really remind you what “connecting” is supposed to feel like.

An unexpected, thirty minute, conversational delight that propelled me forward for the rest of my afternoon. When you spend a lot of time alone inside a solitude of sorts, protecting your peace and energy, and then have an encounter like this, it’s like…diving into a refreshingly cool, crystal clear, completely deserted turquoise body of water, after a long, silent stint in a scorching hot, dry and empty desert. I don’t mean to make solitude sound so uncomfortable, it’s actually one of my most comfortable places.

Thank you Mr. J, and Thank YOU for reading!