CLOSE
(by David Whyte)
is what we almost always are: close to
happiness, close to another, close to leaving, close to tears, close to God,
close to losing faith, close to being done, close to saying something, or close
to success, and even, with the greatest sense of satisfaction, close to giving
the whole thing up.
Our human essence lies not in arrival, but in
being almost there: we are creatures who are on the way, our journey a series
of impending anticipated arrivals. We live by unconsciously measuring the
inverse distances of our proximity: an intimacy calibrated by the vulnerability
we feel in giving up our sense of separation.
To go beyond our normal identities and become
closer than close is to lose our sense of self in temporary joy, a form of
arrival that only opens us to deeper forms of intimacy that blur our fixed,
controlling, surface identities.
To consciously become close is a courageous
form of unilateral disarmament, a chancing of our arm and our love, a
willingness to hazard our affections and an unconscious declaration that we
might be equal to the inevitable loss that the vulnerability of being close
will bring.
Human beings do not find their essence through
fulfilment or eventual arrival but by staying close to the way they like to
travel, to the way they hold the conversation between the ground on which they
stand and the horizon to which they go. We are in effect, always close, always
close to the ultimate secret: that we are more real in our simple wish to find
a way than any destination we could reach; the step between not understanding
that and understanding that is as close as we get to happiness.
‘CLOSE’
From CONSOLATIONS:
The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
2019 © David Whyte:
CANONGATE BOOKS UK
