Beautiful and true. You awakened a memory. I once sat in silence with a friend whose husband had died suddenly a few months earlier. She had just told me about thoughtless things people had said in an I effort to make her feel better. She said, “He’s dead and he’s never coming back.” We looked at each other while she cried. It was not easy to accept that words were useless. What she needed was a quiet witness.
Thanks for sharing this powerful moment you shared with your friend Rona. You bring up a great point—I think in those most intense, lived experiences, the ones where we always feel a bit like "What the hell do I say?" it's so important to remember the power of silence and holding a space for it to simply be.
Interesting observation Linda! You must have a brilliant memory, and/or are experiencing some of that shared consciousness that the autistic children have expressed!
How incredibly beautiful! And deeply resonant as I have been contemplating the meanings of meaning and language over the past few weeks. The language of love.
Meaning ~ I read only yesterday ~ is the language of life itself.
"They are living, it seems, outside of linear time and three-dimensional space, where language is not a bridge but a bottleneck—a crude tool, where a more refined communion is possible. Their silence is not absence. It is signal. Transmission." you capture so perfectly.
You write about "The fabric that holds the meaning, even when the message dissolves."
The trouble with language and words is, perhaps, that they are born in a certain worldview, a momentary field of living, only to fall short to cover the forever unfolding changes of life.
Thank you so much for sending this transmission 💗🙏
"only to fall short to cover the forever unfolding changes of life." Yes! It's as if words live in two-dimensional, linear space/time and yet they travel through a field unbound by time or space. How do we connect to meaning that transcends time and space, but describe that meaning in linear 2D? Maybe this is why films can be so transformative, or seductive even, (or any audio/visual media for that matter)—because it helps flesh out that 2D with symbol. Symbol, in the form of picture and sound, I think live in multiple dimensions?
Symbol, yes, I think so too. Metaphors, stories, parables, and symbols... and of course images and sound/ music... are far better suited to capture the complex dimensions that we inhabit ourselves. (But words can be useful in that process too)
Leaning back to absorb this one, Kimberly. In a short essay about the limitations of words, you’ve named so many below the surface connections, and brought up such meaning-making. But I guess what you’re saying here is a version of “look how everything is love.”
Awww! How cool for you to say that. Yes, if I could visualize this entire essay as one picture, it might be that child's arm reaching, wonder filled, into empty space. :) Thank you for being here Stephanie. Thank you for offering your generous presence and adding to this ineffable heart we all seem to share over here.
I am spellbound and speechless, Kimberly. Words feel so inadequate, and yet, I must try to find some that express how beautiful this piece is, to express my thanks for these thoughts, these words that you have shared, so utterly profound. Thank you 💕
Oh thank you thank you Emily. I edited it out, but I did have an invitation at the very end of this essay for everyone to hold their comments and just meet me in the silence. And I think I now should've kept it! Nevertheless, silence is welcome! I feel your deeply attentive, kindred, wordless wonder in all that you create and share over here.
Perhaps fittingly this essay has left me speechless ❤️ What a beautiful, heart-lifting piece this is. I want to read and reread and relish each idea. There are so many threads woven in, making such a rich tapestry... from personal to universal, from the wonder of words to their limitations, from physics to philosophy. Such a powerful piece x
Oh my heart-What a gorgeous sharing of your heart. And beyond everything-truly word perfect. With my own mom's dementia-the most connected moments for me are those without the words that are formed and held with a smile and the eyes-the silent but not empty question of inquiry of familiarity. The smile is returned, sometimes with words-humor-sometimes just energy and delight. It's like we have returned to a time long ago-before she realized that her first born was to become a chattiepants at 9 months old and reciprocated by telling me everything-and there is now mostly just love passed back and forth. Now it's hard for her to hear her oldest daughter's wonderfully wise observations but she can feel me and often lights up when I'm there with her.
"the silent but not empty question of familiarity" - - such a beautiful phrase. Thank you for sharing with me the intimate, quiet moments of dementia, how what remains is love passed back and forth. I'm holding this, and you and your mom, in my heart today.
Beautiful, Kimberly. For someone who was mistaken as mute as a child, your words resonated deeply with me. We humans like to fill the silence all the time, but we also often say, "There are no words." Indeed, there are no words for some things - grief, soul connections, transcendent joy.. just to name a few sensations I've found myself at a loss to describe. Sometimes what we really need is what you described: presence.
Thank you for your reflection Tiffany. I want to scoop that little you up in my arms and tell her that her silence is beautiful, ask her to take me for a walk through the woods, show me what she hears, speak in her (likely more embodied?) language.
I’m grabby with my cats too and I love picturing you in the subterranean lab. My family hosted frequent dinner parties and large Thanksgiving gatherings when I was growing up. I always found my way to the piano, as I would grow tired of talking and preferred to communicate in another way.
What you’ve written about your mother touches me so deeply. Ah, love. Love without words, love beyond words, love in the deepened listening.
Thank you, as always, friend, for your writing alchemy.
I busted out laughing at "Probably why I get a little grabby with my cats.". I adore you.
I've always believed that telepathy is our natural way of communicating and somewhere on the way, however we choose to explain what happened there (cultures, religions, etc.), we lost the ability to connect our consciousness to one another. There are glimpses here and there, like the children in The Telepathy Tapes, the sapient, and the "touched".
This felt like a remembering. A coming home. We humans love to complicate and make a mess of things. I suspect you had it figured out all along, especially as a little girl. You are a treasure, Kimberly. I am honored to share this world with you.
I could think of nothing more satisfying than my writing feeling like “a coming home” to you. Maybe someday I’ll be moving around my day when a note from Jenovia suddenly pops in and from then on, you and I can “converse” in the most natural of ways. Gosh I’d love that. Little Kim winking at little Jenovia. I see you.
Oh, so poignant! Thank you for sharing this moment and for introducing us all to The Telepathy Tapes. They remind me so much of when my daughter was eight and only periodically verbal; it felt like we shared the same consciousness when she would up and say, "So, what is it about me that you don't like about yourself?" 😂
Oh Kimberly, just so much emotion here. I loved what you said about language, then you took us to a whole other heartstring pulling level with that ending.💜
Thanks Mary, how intimately intertwined language (or lack thereof) and heart are in my life right now. So many times on our trip, we asked my mom if she wanted to join the conversation, making sure to not unintentionally leave her out. She always smiled and replied, Nothing to say! I’m very content simply being.
Beautiful and true. You awakened a memory. I once sat in silence with a friend whose husband had died suddenly a few months earlier. She had just told me about thoughtless things people had said in an I effort to make her feel better. She said, “He’s dead and he’s never coming back.” We looked at each other while she cried. It was not easy to accept that words were useless. What she needed was a quiet witness.
Thanks for sharing this powerful moment you shared with your friend Rona. You bring up a great point—I think in those most intense, lived experiences, the ones where we always feel a bit like "What the hell do I say?" it's so important to remember the power of silence and holding a space for it to simply be.
Words are not
what we say,
they are
traps to catch wind
roots to hold water
meditation bowls
to birth rainbows
Gah! I love this Paul. Are these your words? Or rather, are these your traps and roots and meditation bowls?
They are, Kimberly. I posted it as a note recently but I thought it might be a good response to your post.
It was perfection!
Yes, Paul! This is beautiful. Settles right inside the center of my chest.
Thank you, Sara 🙏😊
I find how I feel and think more often in the words of others rather than my own...including yours. Thank you, Kimberly.
Interesting observation Linda! You must have a brilliant memory, and/or are experiencing some of that shared consciousness that the autistic children have expressed!
Maybe so!
How incredibly beautiful! And deeply resonant as I have been contemplating the meanings of meaning and language over the past few weeks. The language of love.
Meaning ~ I read only yesterday ~ is the language of life itself.
"They are living, it seems, outside of linear time and three-dimensional space, where language is not a bridge but a bottleneck—a crude tool, where a more refined communion is possible. Their silence is not absence. It is signal. Transmission." you capture so perfectly.
You write about "The fabric that holds the meaning, even when the message dissolves."
The trouble with language and words is, perhaps, that they are born in a certain worldview, a momentary field of living, only to fall short to cover the forever unfolding changes of life.
Thank you so much for sending this transmission 💗🙏
"only to fall short to cover the forever unfolding changes of life." Yes! It's as if words live in two-dimensional, linear space/time and yet they travel through a field unbound by time or space. How do we connect to meaning that transcends time and space, but describe that meaning in linear 2D? Maybe this is why films can be so transformative, or seductive even, (or any audio/visual media for that matter)—because it helps flesh out that 2D with symbol. Symbol, in the form of picture and sound, I think live in multiple dimensions?
Great question!
Symbol, yes, I think so too. Metaphors, stories, parables, and symbols... and of course images and sound/ music... are far better suited to capture the complex dimensions that we inhabit ourselves. (But words can be useful in that process too)
Absolutely. I was just hiking and was thinking about how if we have too much silence and space and we lose the plot!
Leaning back to absorb this one, Kimberly. In a short essay about the limitations of words, you’ve named so many below the surface connections, and brought up such meaning-making. But I guess what you’re saying here is a version of “look how everything is love.”
Awww! How cool for you to say that. Yes, if I could visualize this entire essay as one picture, it might be that child's arm reaching, wonder filled, into empty space. :) Thank you for being here Stephanie. Thank you for offering your generous presence and adding to this ineffable heart we all seem to share over here.
I am spellbound and speechless, Kimberly. Words feel so inadequate, and yet, I must try to find some that express how beautiful this piece is, to express my thanks for these thoughts, these words that you have shared, so utterly profound. Thank you 💕
Oh thank you thank you Emily. I edited it out, but I did have an invitation at the very end of this essay for everyone to hold their comments and just meet me in the silence. And I think I now should've kept it! Nevertheless, silence is welcome! I feel your deeply attentive, kindred, wordless wonder in all that you create and share over here.
Perhaps fittingly this essay has left me speechless ❤️ What a beautiful, heart-lifting piece this is. I want to read and reread and relish each idea. There are so many threads woven in, making such a rich tapestry... from personal to universal, from the wonder of words to their limitations, from physics to philosophy. Such a powerful piece x
Yay! Mission accomplished! :) Hope you can wrap yourself up in that tapestry now and snuggle down for a nice afternoon of wordlessness.
Such beautiful sentiments captured in language and imagery. Thank you. This thought will follow me everywhere.
Thank you. It's a real treat to know that something I shared now lives in you.
Oh my heart-What a gorgeous sharing of your heart. And beyond everything-truly word perfect. With my own mom's dementia-the most connected moments for me are those without the words that are formed and held with a smile and the eyes-the silent but not empty question of inquiry of familiarity. The smile is returned, sometimes with words-humor-sometimes just energy and delight. It's like we have returned to a time long ago-before she realized that her first born was to become a chattiepants at 9 months old and reciprocated by telling me everything-and there is now mostly just love passed back and forth. Now it's hard for her to hear her oldest daughter's wonderfully wise observations but she can feel me and often lights up when I'm there with her.
"the silent but not empty question of familiarity" - - such a beautiful phrase. Thank you for sharing with me the intimate, quiet moments of dementia, how what remains is love passed back and forth. I'm holding this, and you and your mom, in my heart today.
Thank you dear soul. And thank you again for the beautiful piece of writing that you shared.
Beautiful, Kimberly. For someone who was mistaken as mute as a child, your words resonated deeply with me. We humans like to fill the silence all the time, but we also often say, "There are no words." Indeed, there are no words for some things - grief, soul connections, transcendent joy.. just to name a few sensations I've found myself at a loss to describe. Sometimes what we really need is what you described: presence.
Thank you for your reflection Tiffany. I want to scoop that little you up in my arms and tell her that her silence is beautiful, ask her to take me for a walk through the woods, show me what she hears, speak in her (likely more embodied?) language.
Little me would have talked your ear off, just by having someone to listen!
I’m grabby with my cats too and I love picturing you in the subterranean lab. My family hosted frequent dinner parties and large Thanksgiving gatherings when I was growing up. I always found my way to the piano, as I would grow tired of talking and preferred to communicate in another way.
What you’ve written about your mother touches me so deeply. Ah, love. Love without words, love beyond words, love in the deepened listening.
Thank you, as always, friend, for your writing alchemy.
I can so easily see little Sara stealing away for the piano during noisy gatherings. I would’ve joined you!
Grin. I would have loved to have had you join me! :)
I busted out laughing at "Probably why I get a little grabby with my cats.". I adore you.
I've always believed that telepathy is our natural way of communicating and somewhere on the way, however we choose to explain what happened there (cultures, religions, etc.), we lost the ability to connect our consciousness to one another. There are glimpses here and there, like the children in The Telepathy Tapes, the sapient, and the "touched".
This felt like a remembering. A coming home. We humans love to complicate and make a mess of things. I suspect you had it figured out all along, especially as a little girl. You are a treasure, Kimberly. I am honored to share this world with you.
I could think of nothing more satisfying than my writing feeling like “a coming home” to you. Maybe someday I’ll be moving around my day when a note from Jenovia suddenly pops in and from then on, you and I can “converse” in the most natural of ways. Gosh I’d love that. Little Kim winking at little Jenovia. I see you.
Oh, so poignant! Thank you for sharing this moment and for introducing us all to The Telepathy Tapes. They remind me so much of when my daughter was eight and only periodically verbal; it felt like we shared the same consciousness when she would up and say, "So, what is it about me that you don't like about yourself?" 😂
Beyond wise words! It’s wild to think how much we don’t understand, how limited language can actually be.
I have you and Eleanor to thank for the Telepathy Tapes--they are life changing.💜🙏
Adya said, "In the end, either you give yourself to silence or you don't."
This is beautiful and beautifully articulated.
Well gosh. A nod from THE Adam and I think I’ll go treat myself to a snack now. Thanks friend.
Oh Kimberly, just so much emotion here. I loved what you said about language, then you took us to a whole other heartstring pulling level with that ending.💜
Thanks Mary, how intimately intertwined language (or lack thereof) and heart are in my life right now. So many times on our trip, we asked my mom if she wanted to join the conversation, making sure to not unintentionally leave her out. She always smiled and replied, Nothing to say! I’m very content simply being.