Love Bones

Rediscovering New Jersey: Skyline Drive, along the Appalachian Trail

“Our invented philosophy — the self-made scaffold our lives and visions cling to — is harder to speak out loud. It’s hard to even write it down. And yet, we must try! For we hang our very beings on these invisible bones.” Barbara Mahaney, Invitation to December

As much as I would rather be out West hiking around beautiful trails and enjoying the warm dry sunshine, the feeling of community present here has become such a wonderful gift this season.  To get out and see a landscape is rejuvenating, but so are the precious hugs and joyful smiles of people I get to see again.

To be present in a place that has spent years showing me how to love is a gift.  This is not to say that I am in any way perfect at it, but I'm reminded that these are the invisible bones and scaffolding that have supported my soul. These are the people who redirect their steps to give me a hug and ask how I'm doing.  They give me a ride home - even though it is adding 40 minutes to their journey - because they want to catch up with me.  These are people whose "I'm so sorry about your grandmother" mean so so very much, since you know that they know how much she meant to you.  They have given me comfort (and love) in these moments that I have not received from my year of graduate school and moving around.

Love is refreshing; to feel known is relaxing.  If I were to begin to articulate my own invented philosophy, I would have to start with love.  We often talk about compassion in social work - even compassion fatigue - and maybe this is because we don't want to talk about the love you can have for a stranger in a way that comforts them in times of difficulty.  I don't think love ever becomes fatigued, does it?  We talk about boundaries and detachment but what about love?  These are words that carry so much weight and this is one of the heaviest.  Feeling loved - "attached" as they say in psychology - can bring me to tears; it moves me.

As much as I love the West, the West will never love me back.  This is why to be loved in community is a gift, which also comes with its own challenges.  But we must continue to try and to hang our very beings on these good and strong invisible bones.