Speaking Pain

I've done a lot of thinking these past few weeks about pain and about communication.

At 9 1/2 weeks, I lost the baby. So unexpected to me that I would have a miscarriage, even though they happen often -- and quietly.

Madeleine L'Engle says that when people talk through pain, they "spread their problems out between [two]...[and]...can then see it themselves in better perspective" (A Circle of Quiet).

This has proved most true for me during the past few weeks. I have been struck by what happens when people speak their pain aloud -- suddenly, others' pain becomes unearthed, and all of this buried gold begins, magically, to rise up and out of ourselves; gravity is reversed and we experience seeing each other for a brief moment.

These interactions change us; they seal us to each other, push us from rehearsed existing into wild living. Often, we don't talk again about what we saw during a raw exchange -- it's too sacred, we even feel embarrassed by how our whole body shook with sobs or how our face turn red and swollen, how all of our guardedness fell -- but the moment solidifies and becomes one of the rocks we pick up because it marked us. Or made us.

I'm so thankful for all the rocks in my pocket...