I Knew Them All

Image by Odd Bod via Flickr

There’s not much to say, here, except what happened.  It isn’t easy, even to tell that.  Because there are no words.  Just knowing.

There are words in certain languages, which cannot be directly translated into another language.  They represent more of a cultural concept, one that wouldn’t be truly grasped unless one grew up within that culture.  Like “chez-moi” in French.  There’s only a general translation of that into English, something close to “come along with me” or “join me, wherever I’m going”.  The specific situation defines the exact meaning of that phrase.  But no direct translation, only a vague, conceptual understanding.

Such is this experience, which I will share with you shortly.  It is a variation of the experiences shared by so many other people.  We all have these experiences, which can be only loosely translated into any language, because they speak of things beyond this world, where colors and sounds and thoughts and emotions are only words that vaguely describe those things beyond.  We struggle to label these experiences, to communicate them to others, to make the experience a shared one.  Because if we could just bring that experience into the world of words, of the finite, it could be understood by others, shared by others.  Ah but it is.  Because we’ve all been there and will go again.  We are there every time we’re present, rooted in the moment.  And that moment cannot be described, because by the time we’ve reflected on it, it has become changed, it has become another moment.

The day was gorgeous, in the 70-degree range.  An occasional faint breeze touched lightly against my cheek.  The sounds were crisp, yet soft, not harsh.  The colors of the trees were sharply in focus, with edges that blended ever so softly, complemented, even enhanced the colors of the other trees, of the sky, of the water, and of the soil.   I couldn’t really discern where one color started and the other began: but the colors had sounds of their own.  The knowing that the colors were alive came to me, as a gentle, almost imperceptible gasp escaped my lips, such as happens with a deja vu experience: that gentle gasp of recognition, of awe, of knowing.  I had heard the phrase, “the colors seemed to come alive!” in the past, but until this moment I’d really never known what, exactly, that meant.  Now I knew.  The colors were alive!

The sounds were more than just pitches, or notes on an octave.  The sounds were imbued with feeling, with a presence that blended with all the others around it to make a melody.  One note, one sound, was pure, and I could make that one note my muse for hours, and hear-feel only that one note, separate from the others.   Yet one note a melody did not make, and I stepped back, opening my ears to let all of the sounds rush in.  The symphony poured through me, the sounds together, near ecstasy.  I climbed up on those notes, found myself walking on the musical tones, for they were solid.  Solid, with sounds and substance and feeling.

With a start, the symphony stopped, and the grocer’s door slid open with a “swoosh”!  I returned, quite abruptly, to this new moment of mine.  As I wandered through the store, a strange thing began to happen.  The sounds and colors remained vivid, taken separately or together.   My awareness shifted to the beautiful people passing me, (or me passing them, I wasn’t quite sure which).  It seemed I knew each person I met.  I looked at a woman, and she smiled a smile of recognition.  It was a warm smile, one usually reserved only for those we know intimately well.  Each person I passed seemed to recognize me, and I them.  It felt like I’d been away for a long, long time, and this, a greatly anticipated reunion, had been planned by each of us.  I had been in this grocery store a hundred times, and was lucky to see one person I knew, much less everyone!  Some of the people passing me even slowed as they smiled, and made a short greeting of “Hello!”  But I didn’t know their names!  Why didn’t I know their names? I wondered.  I knew these people, I should know their names.  But I didn’t.  I felt a deep connection with each person I passed in the store that day.  As if we were one.

I felt tears sting my eyes, as I glanced toward a woman coming toward me.  Her cart seemed more to be pulling her than she seemed to be pushing it.  There was sadness and heaviness and the resignation of the weary about her.  She glanced at me, then looked quickly away.  I didn’t seem to know her as well as the others, and she had not wanted me in.  I respected that request, it was my gift to her.  I will see her again.

I left the store, and a warmth enveloped my entire body.  In that warmth were all of those I had ever known, and all of those I will know.  And the warmth is presence, the warmth is this moment, the warmth is the great connector we clumsily (for lack of a better translation) call love.

©Janet Mitchell,  August 2011