That Heart We Also Have

A few days ago, I posted this on Facebook, and it seemed to speak to a lot of people:

"The heart of a dog is really something. Teddy, the chow mix whose person in this world was my deceased brother-in-law, has been sitting outside, all day, every day, rain, snow, bright sunny cold, watching the driveway, since Dave died. She doesn't want to go in. She's out there from about 6 a.m. until after dark, every day, with very few breaks, vigilant. Watching and waiting. I think some of us have a buried part of us that waits the exact same way. The same mute, loyal, inconsolable part of us we might not even notice after a while, eyes fixed on the driveway, certain that the beloved is bound to return. Bewildered, not accepting, at best, forgetting, but only after the attrition of years. And, exactly like a dog, the same expectant, loyal, waiting part of us can't be reasoned with. If I could explain to Teddy that Dave is never coming back, it probably wouldn't make a difference anyway. Our mind, with words, tries to reason with our own heart in the same way. It doesn't make any difference."

The sense of loss and waiting has remained with me, as if simply catharsis in writing about it would make it any different. I sometimes put too much faith in the power of expressing something, as if simply getting it out there will make it go away. A friend of mine is in the habit of following statements she makes with statements like "None of that is true, or might be all just blowing smoke, and none of it would I set in stone." In this way, she instantly burns to the ground what she has just written. I was at first startled by this, since I get so attached to what I write. But it has become a strategy of mine, now, also, to step back from what I just wrote and demolish it. Or just wear it a lot more loosely.

This reminds me of how we sometimes respond to being broken up with or left by that weird tendency to catalog all of the times the beloved said things that were like vows. "But you promised!" It's a natural tendency of course, but yet again puts too much stock into mere words. Anyone is capable of saying anything at any time. This is one of the weird facts of human consciousness. Resorting to only two categories (truth or lie) is usually much too black or white. But how terrifying it is, at the same time. to remember that even if a statement is 100% true at a certain time, it may never be true again, as time rushes forward and creates new context, new realities, new decisions, new choices, new feelings. 

That heart we also have, waiting and watching the driveway, is outside of time. The passage of time doesn't matter. Love is touching souls, says Joni, and surely you touched mine, she also says, but where and when do those soul touches go, in the weird and inchoate welter of time's indifference? No one knows. Constantly in the darkness. 

Teddy's life purpose has shifted now from Dave being her person to guarding Dave's territory, even though Dave is gone. Does a dog have any idea of how long he has been gone? Or that he is never coming back? One wonders what any of that would mean to Teddy. Her heart knows only exactly what it knows, probably pretty much right now. That heart we also have.