Habits of the heart
The vinyl is playing and, just like any other Saturday night, my to-do list hasn’t gotten any shorter. The house is empty but filled with memories. Beautiful memories. The front door is still in the same place, and as I pass in the hallway and look at it, I can clearly see all those who came and went, so silently, so discreetly, so wholeheartedly. And it doesn’t break me.
From the outside looking in, I am alone — but those are only observations, and observations don’t always tell the whole story. Nine doors, seven windows, three couches, ten chairs, two beds, two lounges, two guitars, two mirrors, three cameras, and plenty of coffee mugs that are mostly used for tea. And it doesn’t break me. The desire to create runs inside my organs and I can feel the words coming out, so effortlessly.
Images, sounds, odors… All in words. All in pictures. All in movement. All in a paper and pencil that I wish to hold but know not how to draw. And it doesn’t break me. So I stand. As always, the floor is cold — the carpet is too small to cover the entire room. But I like it. It makes the rest of the floor slippery and with the right socks on, turns dancing through the rooms into a smooth activity. Dancing alone when no one is watching.
How poetic. How cinematic. How real. And it doesn’t break me. There are voices, and even though perfection is a utopia, I can perfectly see the silhouettes of those who came and went. There are eyes too. So many of them. Bodies. Everywhere. They walk, they sit, they lay down, they turn. They rarely touch me — I pull away easily. But in fact, they do. In the deepest way — they make me smile. So I smile. And it doesn’t break me.
And so they — people — ask me. “How to be alone?” I was a teacher — in the past. But I can’t teach. Not because I am a poor communicator, but because I can’t teach the habits of the heart. I really do find it a beautiful thing. To be alone, to explore solitude and find in it the most comforting of all human sensations. It is indeed something that cannot be portrayed.
You see… words. Words… at the end of the day… are just letters in an uncomfortable embrace of utter physical vulnerability. Words, I’ve always loved them. They uncover. They reveal. They expose. But they also hide, manipulate, and obstruct. They hinder the revealing silence that, more or less, communicates more than the lines that shape each letter, that form each word, that create each sentence.
All really is simple, and words complicate it. But I still love them —behind their small little meaning, deceitful potential — they heal. But they don’t teach. They can’t teach the habits of the heart.
This piece was originally written on February 15th, 2020. It has been published in my book, Dare, which can be ordered here.
