This Is the Hole

This is the hole. This formless, nameless, colorless chasm of fog.

It’s a longing for something that doesn’t exist. It’s being homesick for a home that never was. It’s yearning for something that never will be. It’s wandering in a network of slippery caverns, seeing only hints of light but no outlet. It’s ungroundedness. It’s bobbing about with no anchor and no shore, treading water. It’s searching for an answer that is not. It’s wanting something but not knowing what.

It’s looking and looking but finding only vagueness. It’s trodding a globe full of ambiguity, with millions of people, but no place to call home. It’s trodding along a journey with no map, no water, and no guide.

It’s hearing someone calling your name in the distance, but not knowing whether the call arose from the east or the west.

Or was it the north? And realizing it wasn’t your name at all.

It’s looking at the Northern star and thinking it’s the only constant in a world that orbits and moves and never stands still.

It’s breathing in but inhaling smoke. It's exhaling and realizing that there is nothing left in you.

It’s churning up your mind with questions intertwined with questions and then losing yourself in the web.

It’s living through an ache that won’t let up. It’s carrying it with you wherever you go. It’s not being able to go where you need to go or do what you need to do.

It’s wanting to sleep so you can cease to feel this chokinginess, but not being able to sleep because you have to stay alert. It’s being knocked over by the slightest wind. It’s living in a fear of falling into an abyss.

It’s needing to be alone so you don’t have to protect those in your charge from the danger, but being alone and then wanting to be somewhere else, but wanting to be nowhere.

It’s looking at the hole and wishing you’d be able fill it, but not having the wherewithal or the know-how with which to fill it. It’s being so empty but yet needing to fill others.

It’s realizing that something that is nothing can hurt more than anything can.

It’s thinking of Yosef’s empty pit, empty of water but not of scorpions, and understanding the Rashi too well.

It’s wanting to cry to allow some of the tension to dissipate but finding it locked in an armor of steel. It’s banging against the armor until you scrape your fingers and your knuckles hurt.

It’s finally, finally shedding a few tears and seeing that the heaviness has lightened just a tiny bit.

Just enough for you to move on for today.

About the photo: Melancholy, a sculpture created by Albert Gyorgy, portrays the void that's left by grief.