Empatharama

I was driving down Hawley Road the other day and I passed the Spring Hill Cemetery.  There was a man, standing at a grave site, grieving.   I was at the red light and I felt him before I saw him. I turned my head and there he was. I swear, I could feel his grief flow off him in a wave and hit me square in the chest, leaving me speechless.  I turned off the radio and let it in.

Oh, man, there is just something about grief.  It's hard and it's difficult, no doubt.... but it's also so soul filling.  Grief, whether I'm feeling my own or someone else's, it makes me feel really really alive.  Grief means that there was something that you loved...and even though you lost it...you loved it enough to grieve for it. That's powerful.

And now spring is coming and it's warm outside.  I have gone for a walk during my lunch break both yesterday and today and oh, the feeling emanating off the people in the street--the joy in the sun and the warmth--it is all around!  And that same wave of feeling hit me again yesterday from a man on the corner. He fist bumped the guy on Brady Street playing his guitar and I didn't just see the smile on his face, I felt it.

Whether it is as heart breaking as grief or as heart leaping as joy.... It is a wonderful thing to FEEL.

When I was living away from home, I remember the extremes of the pendulum swing of my emotions from aching homesickness to elation so strong I was moved to squeal.... it was a time in my life I'll always most the feeling of being alive.

In the daily routine of work and being a parent and running a house and driving a car, refilling water bottles and packing lunches....  sometimes those extremes get dulled.  But if you open your heart and eyes and mind and let the world around you move you a little; put on your headphones and listen to a song that makes you orbit; really look at someone you love while they tell you something...  it can fill you up, make you feel.

Alive.

Late winter sunset on 55th Street