The Safe Villian of Secrecy

There is an author that I am reading who describes the feeling of loss, a particular loss, as an airless rectangle that rests between your sternum  and spine. The airlessness within this sharp rectangle is much like the inside an elevator with its motionless air. 

I've been thinking about the description today.  (It's Francisco Goldman. I would type out the description, but you should just read the book.  So that you know, as exactly as you can, what is inside the rectangle that he is describing.)

(pause)

What I know is that people don't like to talk about unpretty things. And that is why I don't share a ton about my life up until now.  I sense it. The shift in the air that happens when someone asks me about my family and I answer them honestly.

The people who have stories like mine become the holder of other people's stories.

Because we are, of course, the story keepers:  The people who do not flinch at other people's stories and, thus, we can both listen to and keep them.

I know and see the value in that.  I know and see the value in myself and in people like me. 

It is not our only function.  But you would be amazed at how many people will pour out everything they ever wished to have held as if, in fact, it is.

(pause)

Let me talk with you about secrecy vs. privacy.

Secrecy is the omitting of truths. The blurring of stories. The erasure of communicated pillars of one's life.

Privacy is discreet and opaque, but open about that fact.

There are reasons to be private.

There aren't many good reasons to be secretive.

Think about how you are and with whom and for what reasons or ends.

(pause)

I'm thinking of quite a bit tonight.  It was nice that I ran into a stranger who shared a brief conversation about books and we traded recommendations of recent reads.  He was so outside of my world and who I hang out with (think: self help business major) that I will take the recommendations seriously. The two books are on their way to me from the library system as I type this. It may be silly, but chance and momentarily frank interactions with people you will more than likely never see again tend to be the kind I pay attention to.  Other worlds sending ripples to push you towards something you need to know.

In any case, that's what I have for you tonight.

I felt really shy today.  Too much attention*. There are days that I find it upsetting to discover that I am not invisible. Today is one of those days.




Be well; be loved; find your meaning in what surrounds you in a larger sense, and keep paying attention to all that it includes.
 
-k.


 (image: Alexander Arnild Peitersen via untrustyou tumblr)

[*=  "I feel like I've commented on your lip color before, but it's on point again tonight." -- stranger 1

"She's very compliment-able! She's reading! It's not very often that I see people reading in the Chipotle line." --stranger 2 in response to stranger 1

"I can't help but to be curious about you..." -- stranger 3]