Didi, this one really reaches deep. The image of a serrated cut feels painfully real, especially beside the simple instruction to breathe and sit with what is happening. Sometimes there is no way around the hot seat—we can only stay there and feel it. ❤️
I wrote this poem four years ago, Choti Bhai. There have been periods in my life—one long one, 22 months long about 15 years ago—near your age—where I faced an early, very painful pattern from childhood that needed addressing. It was being triggered by current day events, as these patterns often are. I needed to learn, once and for all, that as personal as love may seem on the embodied plane, if we step back into deeper understanding, love is simply love. Not personal. We have no claim on who loves whom or what. Love simply is. I fell off the hot seat repeatedly. I wept almost every day. I thought this might kill my body, the depth of misunderstanding and grief.
And then one morning, sitting at my computer preparing to write, understanding opened—just like that—and it was done. Love, beautiful love, simply is. It can’t be owned or even clung to. Tears of relief and joy. Then ten or so years later, now a poet, this poem came. It has been an important one for me.
Didi, thank you for telling me this. I understand the poem differently now—not just as something you wrote, but as something that came out of a very difficult part of your life. The thought of you sitting there, weeping day after day, and then having that understanding open one morning is deeply moving.
I think I understand now why this poem has remained important to you. It carries not only the pain of the hot seat, but also what came after it. And perhaps that is why the poem reached me so strongly.
I am very glad you came through those 22 months, Didi. And I am especially glad that, years later, you found the poet in you who could give that experience its own voice. ❤️
Well observed and stated!
Thank you, Joyce!
I like this a lot. Feels true to experience - mine and the author's,
Yes. Sorry, I've been terribly behind in responding. One of the medications I'm on, I fall asleep at my computer!
Didi, this one really reaches deep. The image of a serrated cut feels painfully real, especially beside the simple instruction to breathe and sit with what is happening. Sometimes there is no way around the hot seat—we can only stay there and feel it. ❤️
I wrote this poem four years ago, Choti Bhai. There have been periods in my life—one long one, 22 months long about 15 years ago—near your age—where I faced an early, very painful pattern from childhood that needed addressing. It was being triggered by current day events, as these patterns often are. I needed to learn, once and for all, that as personal as love may seem on the embodied plane, if we step back into deeper understanding, love is simply love. Not personal. We have no claim on who loves whom or what. Love simply is. I fell off the hot seat repeatedly. I wept almost every day. I thought this might kill my body, the depth of misunderstanding and grief.
And then one morning, sitting at my computer preparing to write, understanding opened—just like that—and it was done. Love, beautiful love, simply is. It can’t be owned or even clung to. Tears of relief and joy. Then ten or so years later, now a poet, this poem came. It has been an important one for me.
Didi, thank you for telling me this. I understand the poem differently now—not just as something you wrote, but as something that came out of a very difficult part of your life. The thought of you sitting there, weeping day after day, and then having that understanding open one morning is deeply moving.
I think I understand now why this poem has remained important to you. It carries not only the pain of the hot seat, but also what came after it. And perhaps that is why the poem reached me so strongly.
I am very glad you came through those 22 months, Didi. And I am especially glad that, years later, you found the poet in you who could give that experience its own voice. ❤️
Me too, dear friend.