I came upon her as I had been walking in the forest. We find each other now and then, she and I. Who knows what triggers it. Every time I see her, it is simultaneously a moment of surprise as well as familiarity- sometimes it occurs several times in the same meeting.
She seems a little bit different every time I meet her. She can be many things, perhaps because she is all things, or nothing. I could not describe her to you. One could give her a name- a certain constellation of sounds, like ‘air’. Just like the word ‘air’, naming itself explains nothing about the phenomenon. There is no one word that can explain how it moves as breeze on warm nights, like hurricanes and tornadoes in destruction, as well as like breath- the very thread of life. She is like that too. Very many things. And formless.
We are sitting next to each other- she and I. Somewhere in the middle of the forest. We haven’t said a word. I am soaking in that feeling of surprise and familiarity as I sit there. She is doing something with a twig. Engrossed. I am trying to figure her out- who am I seeing today? I suspect that the best I am able to do on most days in grasping her essence, is to establish in her regard ‘yes/no’ answers against labels I myself carry. My grasping of her essence, thus, is limited to the boundaries of me.
And yet.. and yet, there is an ever-present feeling- like a word almost on the tip of your tongue which refuses to come forth at the last moment- this feeling of a ‘her’ clearly not within the ambit of the labels I carry. And I wonder- does my awareness of that un-nameable part of her (the parts I am touching with my labels are miniscule, really) imply that my own labels are not the outer limits of the boundaries of my being?
I am highly conscious of my labels today as I sit next to her. I suspect she is amused at my bundle of labels. I sit there all neat and tidy- my labels holding everything in its place. She on the other hand has twigs in her hair. I wonder if I look and feel out of place that deep in the forest- a visitor. It is her home.
We are sitting next to each other- she and I. We don’t really rely on words. I think she looks peaceful, so engrossed in whatever she is doing, and completely at home. She also looks impatient- working away with the twigs doing God knows what. She looks peaceful and impatient. I think she looks beautiful, in a sort of way. But she also looks rough and rugged. She looks beautiful and rugged. Like this I keep going, seeing one aspect in a moment, and its opposite in another. And she is clearly all of them. And more. She is an element of nature.
She is neither artist not scientist. She is neither beautiful nor intelligent. She is neither accomplished nor striving. She is neither young nor old. She is neither strong nor weak. She has no past nor future. She is nothing. She is.
I wonder if I can be. I wonder how my boundaries can indeed be finite, given I am able to grasp the infinity of hers.
It’s been many many hours when she eventually turns and looks straight at me. I don’t see the amusement in her face which I had been imagining/ expecting. And in that moment her look surprises me with a new thought- perhaps I had been she, who wanted to become me.
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