Knowing

Waiting in line at this coffee house, no tables, until I find a spot at the head of a community table, with five furiously, famously knitting women. I love them, two seconds flat.

Scanning the art installation on the wall, illuminated trees, shellacked layers, side by side by side, and rivers, shellacked layers, next to those. More love, sprouts of tears, and I'm happy to feel so full. Fully unknown, just noticing.

Last night in the bath, in the dark, I repeat my name inside the silence, over and over and over again, slowly, and each time, in the pause between thought, the experience Don't Know emerges. Years ago, it was an exercise in therapy training, to partner up and repeat the other person's name to them until they could reach a place of I don't know. Don't know that name, my name, don't know who that is. The questions progress: Are you a woman? I don't know. Are you married? I don't know. Do you have parents? I don't know. Are you a mother?.......
We find the places where we are utterly, wonderfully attached.

Then what? Who remains after the don't know comes and goes? This is where I've been, driving over bridges, walking streets, doing dishes. Don't know.

During the years that I sat with clients, it was hour after hour of Don't know. That first meeting where someone comes in with the whole juicy story, crisp clothes, full day timers - and we sit, sit in silence, unnerving. Expectant glances, unnecessary questions land and dissolve, until the discomfort gives way to being, just being together, finding that place of don't know, and then.....

The real conversation begins, and we are not speaking it. It is speaking us. The air feels pregnant, and suddenly, we are in the know.

Knowing is a consciousness that is always already here. We don't achieve it. We just let go of everything that crowds that simple scintillation.

River always says, "Like God, Mama? Like God?"

"Yes, sweetie, like God...."