The Split-Apart Story

     Once upon a time, says Plato, things were different.

We each walked around as dual-beings, the components of two human bodies crafted seamlessly into one. In this form, we possessed strength and wholeness. We were quick. Strong. Smart. We were complete, and thus, we were ambitious in our quests. As intact, independent beings we felt few needs here on earth and so turned our eyes to the heavens.

And it was for this very reason the gods on Mount Olympus sliced us all in two - to diminish the threat that we would scale the cliffs up to their dwelling. The gods fiercely attacked and severed us each in two. In a chaos of panic we were all scattered, lost and lonely without our other half. And so, with each human-being separated and scrambled, humanity was distracted from the pursuit of the gods and condemned to a life of searching for their "other".

Wandering.

Seeking.

Needing.

Plato's symposium offers one explanation for something that seems to have plagued humanity since the beginning of time.

The need for love. The need for intimacy. The need for somebody else.

Why do we have a need for another human being to understand us and accept us to our very core?

While modern humans as a whole seem to outwardly strive for autonomy and independence and a strong "sense of self", I see people every day who simply don't WANT to be utterly independent or autonomous or self-reliant. . .

Myself included.

We all remember Catherine Earnshaw's heart-wrenching cry: "I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. . . he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same."

To be who you are on your own is entirely different (and much harder) than to be who you are with someone - for someone - and because of someone.

Love, in this context, seems more like a torment than a delight, yet we all want it. . .

ADMIT IT!!! YOU WANT IT TOO!!!

And we are all willing to deal with the side effects of being drugged in love. We deal with the jealousy, the need, the grief, the heartache.

We know that the odds are low we've found someone to scale the heavens with forever. Even the greatest of lovers who seemed to find their "missing half" eventually end up in heartbroken shambles. Romeo and Juliet. Heathcliff and Catherine. Blah blah, blah blah, and blah blah.

Yet . . . we look. We can't help it.

You all go on and on about being "content" and "comfortable with yourselves" and "enjoying life alone". . .

And maybe you are. But maybe, secretly, you're a sucker like I am.

A Love Story in Three Letters

Today, as I sat down at my piano to practice, an old song I used to know came to mind. It was in a worn out packet of sheet music that I had misplaced. I was desperate to find it, so I pried open the lid of the piano bench I was sitting on for the first time in years (the lid is broken and it takes a lot of effort to move the hinges), and instead of finding my sheet music, I found a stack of letters.

I sifted through them... they were the few remaining survivors of an ongoing correspondence with a high school sweetheart who joined the army.

"Babe, whatcha thinkin bout these days? Anything good? Me, I just think about what's meant to be and what's to come. The story of my life I guess. I think about it every day. How's the weather down there in North Carolina? Real pretty I bet. Someday I wish you could show me that creek your always at and always talkin bout! I'm dying to see it because if I'm seeing it, must mean I'm with you. You make those mountains sound like heaven on earth. You make me jealous, babe, with all that country. I would die to live in the country. Truth is, I'm a country boy at heart."

These letters, those days of my life, are all a blur. I wonder whatever I did or said to make this boy fall for me. I was, in those days, a quiet girl, very much turned inward, so much so that even when I was turned outward, I was still seeing myself. I was struggling to find meaning in the world. I was anxious for friendship and love, and this boy was my friend. And I reckon he did love me.

"I wish there was some way besides writing we could talk. I ain't complaining, I'm happy we can talk this way. But could you fly down to Dallas so we can go dancing and have a good time? I can send money for the ticket. Anyways babe I look forward to your letter. I can't wait to read it. Sweety, your beautiful. Every day when I run the mile I think bout you in that shimmery dress you showed me. You looked like an angel. And it ain't your dress that made you that way because that's just you babe!"

I read these letters, at ages 15 and 16, and took for granted the affection and the honesty that in a few years would become nearly impossible to find in men.

Of course, as high school romances often do, this one slowly trickled to an end. Voices around me criticized. I felt guilty, I felt confused, but most of all, I felt young. Suddenly, so young. And at 16, I sent him my last letter, and received in turn, a last one from him.

"Oh Sarah. I'm sad. I guess your telling me this ain't gonna work out. But can I still call you my friend? Not in a bad way but you seem like you could use a friend. I guess God thought different if this is how it is to be now. What gets me thinkin is why did he have us meet and then rip us apart? I reckon he didn't want us together, but I wanted it. Real bad. It confuses me how bad, cause that never happened to me before. I think God should permit everyone just one question in their life, and I'd ask... 'how can I make her happy, lord.' This sucks babe... and I'm sorry you aren't happy."

The pain in that letter made tears come to my eyes today - six years later - because I know I caused him deep grief. Unwittingly or otherwise.

Years have passed, the young man who was the first to ever call me babe is now married! Still in the army. Off living a life. And I'm here, in my own life, looking back. And I'm so glad I get to look back, because those words were once real and raw, they were present - living - TRUE.

And while they're no longer true, they are still real, and they still touch my heart. They give me comfort and happiness. Maybe love is real. Whether it lasts or not.

A year ago, I received contact from this young man. He messaged me online. I had just returned home from my foray out into the world - from my real and horrible heartbreak. I poured out my troubles to him once again, and he replied, in true fashion, with a bit of wisdom.

"Love does weird things to people.... whether it be real or false...."

I guess that's the bottom line of all of it.

The question "is love real?" doesn't matter one bit.

Love does weird things to people, whether it be real or false.

Did a person change you? Did you change a person? Did you laugh? Did you cry? Did you rejoice, and ache, and yearn, and grow?

Those are the things that matter. Those are the things you'll remember.

"well babe, I reckon this letter is long enough. Consider this letter my kiss on your forehead! I know you haven't had your first kiss yet and if it's me or not doesn't matter, because all the lovin is here, babe, whether this amounts to something or nothin. Goodnight babe."

A Special Guest: My Old Self!

Today I wanted to share something special.

Nearly 3 years ago, when I was barely 18, I wrote this. It was published on a wonderful blog by a sweet lady who at the time, I had never even met. I wrote it at a time of wrestling.

Tonight, I was lying in my bed. Wrestling.

"Is there a God?"

"Who am I?"

"Why?"

And on and on.

Lately, I've been lost in an abyss of wondering. Seeking. Searching. Hoping, praying, THINKING.

Just trying to figure it all out, you know?

But the main thing I've come to discover is that, in fact, I DO think there's a God. Whether or not he's the same one I was raised to believe in is up for debate. 

But perhaps it's the artist in me who just can't help but believe... I believe in a maker. A creator. I believe all this beauty and pain came from somewhere. I believe that 18-year-old Sarah was not alone when she typed this in the back of a dusty ceramics studio.

How could she have been? 

And how could I be now?

The artist in me believes 21-year-old Sarah can't possibly be alone... because something, someone - has to be the artist behind it all. In it all. In me.

So, without further ado, please enjoy this piece that I wrote, back when I didn't worry about my vocabulary or being funny or being RIGHT or being understandable - back before I cautiously manufactured - back when I just created.

Exploring My Grief and Joy Through Clay

Sarah Kane is one of Keith Pruitt's high school English students. She reached out to Healing Knots to share her broken heart about losing a mentor, role model and friend.

contact Sarah:
828-674-9749
shebrew7@gmail.com

I've always had issues with seasons—the idea of being in one place yet suspended in wait for another—the idea of a shifting and changing present moment, a foreign and barely peripheral past, and the future, massive and unknown.

Having an issue with seasons is a problem, since seasons are the stuff of life. Everything comes in seasons—growth, rest, healing, grief. 

The literal seasons manifest this concept for me, and winters are horrendous. Last winter was by far the worst I have known—the long, dark days defined by an absence of warmth, compounded by the overwhelming presence of loss in my life. Loss of a dear friend, loss of innocence, loss of peace (and any good substitute for it)—I found myself treading terrifying emotions and sliding into mindless pain rituals as a way to cope with my sorrow (and perhaps confirm it). The feeling that my sorrow was invalid and stupid kept me locked inside guilt and misery, deepening the aching abscess of grief. That winter followed me into spring, into summer, and stayed dense and cloudy in my mind as life carried on into new seasons, new semesters.

By the time I was handed a lump of cold, heavy clay on the first day of school, I was ragged inside.

Clay was an unexpected challenge. I became my own unexpected challenge. This new medium was so different from my normal one of words and stories. Where words fell flat and stories started wearing thin, clay was dark and dense and required such a literal strength in dealing with it. I felt the ache in my whole body when I wrestled it on the wheel, realizing my weakness. The intricacy and delicate touch required to draw up thin, watery walls made me confront the fact that I am neither gentle nor patient. 

Nor did I have any understanding of what clay needs to go through to become art.

People are like clay. We are kneaded, shaped, scratched, smoothed, drenched in water, color, and heat.

The process of making a ceramic piece is more in-depth than I ever imagined. The initial steps are hard enough—taking your cold lump of clay, you toss it onto the wheel and begin the nearly brutal process of centering it. It will rebel—spinning off center, jerking your hands back at you and pulsing like an unruly heartbeat. It will bend your thumbs and invade your fingernails. But, by drenching it in water, and continuing to press and press and press—eventually your clay submits into some form of symmetry.

Once symmetrical, you will lift the clay up and press it down and raise it again—and eventually, dip your hand into the heart of it, stretching it open, shaping walls, creating depth, ridges, and dips. 

My first wobbly bowl, dented in fingerprints, was wired off the wheel and left to dry. I considered it complete. 

But something I never knew about ceramics is that once bowls are made and dried, they return to the wheel.

Upside down, your bowl is placed back onto the wheel-head, and that painstaking process of centering begins for the second time. Using a sharp tool, you spin your bowl and trim off long curls of clay, taking off weight, taking off excess, revealing more deliberately the shape you intended for that initial lump. This is a nerve-wracking process for any potter, and even the most well-thrown bowls are at risk of completely being destroyed while trusting a sharp tool and a human hand. 

Often, I find my pieces become nicked and jagged during this process. It takes a truly patient pair of hands to ease the bowl into symmetry again, and it takes a deliberate mind to remove layers with confidence. If the clay is left too thick, it risks disaster under high temperature. The trimming process creates a thin, healthy piece that can withstand the heat of the kiln. 

I feel for clay during this process. I don’t think I would like being trimmed. 

I do not like being reduced, or scraped, or brought down. I do not like loss. 

I do not like trusting a sharp blade not to pierce right through me, ort hands to keep me from sliding off center and being sliced.

Once your bowl is trimmed, you deliver it into the fires of the kiln for the first time—but, like you returned it to the wheel for more trimming, you will bring it back to the kiln a second time, at an even higher temperature, once you have glazed it with color.

In the kiln, clay remembers. It becomes molten and loose. The glaze, which was as dry as dust when your piece entered the kiln, turns to liquid and clings to the clay, which shifts and squirms in the heat. Your piece is now at its most fragile—limp and helplessly detached from your guiding hands. 

Anything that may have happened to your bowl before firing has the potential to affect it—past injuries rise from within your piece and threaten balance. Any deep hurts become surface flaws. The way your piece was touched before the kiln matters more than ever now.

Many of my bowls were pushed and dented while they were still soft. Though I painstakingly covered over the mistakes, re-shaping the clay, smoothing and tweaking, I was horrified when many of my bowls came out disfigured. It’s called warping, and from what I've gathered about clay, it’s impossible to fix—only prevent.

I wonder where that leaves me. I don’t know if I have yet been through the heat of a kiln—perhaps I have hardly even become centered on the wheel yet. I wrestle with the idea that I may be pierced by loss and sliced by trauma, that I might crack if I become dry—that I will always beat wildly off-center. But the worst of all is the thought that I will repair over my hurts, that I will be deep, beautiful, and smooth when I enter the heat of the kiln—but that every dent will reappear, I will bend and flux and fall—that because of my pain, I will be rendered misshapen and useless and warped. 

In conclusion, having exhaustively researched the subject, I think the only way to prevent warping is to crawl into the kiln with my pieces and hold them while they melt. Hold them while they are under intense pressure and danger—hold them in my hands, the hands that made them, and the hands that surely know how to preserve them. 

With all my pieces, there is a point I have to let them go. I make them, but I cannot save them.

In light of all these troubling thoughts, I was recently given a word. From where, I do not know, but it is this:

You are not making yourself. 

Whoever IS making me often seems cruel—many days I feel pushed and sliced and off-center. Sometimes I feel dry and dusty, sometimes molten. Sometimes pressed still and silent, and sometimes whirling wildly out of control. 

But if the one making me is strong enough to set a world spinning into perfectly centered motion—strong enough to send it flying around the sun—strong enough to keep a baby suspended in his mother’s watery womb for nine months, strong enough to keep oceans contained by strips of sand and to make stars sing in an atmosphere that would crush lungs—to make birds fly with fragile, hollow bones and people sacrifice their lives for something so ambiguous as “love”—

Then why wouldn't he hold his preciously shaped pieces in the greatest fire they will ever know?

With that idea flickering in my mind, I survive seasons.

Men.

Boys. Dudes. Guys.

Hey.

There's something about you that keeps me interested - intrigued - no matter how many times I discover that most (if not all) of you aren't QUITE what I expected.

This post is about two things: The love I see men give. And the men I see.

Men, 2016 was quite a year for me and you - I went on my first date since my monstrous break-up in 2015, began to find people attractive again (after dreading being looked at, touched, or talked to by men for almost a YEAR!) and truly opened my heart back up to the idea of love!

And, come to find out, my idea of love was changed a LOT since I last experienced it (or what I thought IT was).

I've always seen love, at least the romantic kind, as something that keeps you bound, entrapped, and entwined with someone.

Turns out, that's simply not the case. There are many other things that can do that to a person: lust, need, co-dependency, passion, idealism, hope, desire, even fear. 

You don't STAY with someone just because you LOVE them. Love, and "being together" are NOT mutually exclusive. You can do them both without the other concept present. You can be with someone, and not love them. And you can love someone, and not be with them.

I think I had love confused with commitment. But, I've come to learn, they are two entirely separate phenomena.

And, men, I've learned that I desire much more from you than commitment. I desire wisdom, peace, strength, and a deep love for me that surpasses your need to be with me. The kind of love that sees what's truly BEST. The kind of love that is selfless enough to set aside passion, fear, hope, and need. The kind of love that is simple, strong, and freeing. If it works, stay. If it doesn't - let it go. That's loving. Love that denies the truth (sometimes the truth is: "this is never going to work") isn't REALLY love.

I've learned to appreciate men who are Strong. Sure. Humble. And . . . steady.

I've been surrounded by men who are passionate, but flighty. I've grown up in a community of men who are excited, full of life, and ever-changing and moving and thinking and pondering. And I of course learned to prefer that - I associated men who weren't like that with the word "boring".

Well.

That's changed now - I think part of being a man is combining humility and confidence. I have met men this year who are open about their fallible human nature, but are humble enough about it that they don't feel the need to be "perfect". But rather than wallowing in the knowledge that they are broken human beings, they carry on with life. Strongly pushing through the daily grind. Thinking fast on their feet. Realizing that life is brief, choices matter, but some choices matter more than others.

I've grown weary of the BOYS I know... who are caught in their heads. Entrapped in youthful mindsets of guilt, uncertainty, and this idea that the universe depends on their every thought and move. They don't make choices. They make circles of thought. They vacillate aimlessly. They overthink. They overtalk. They overpray, even... thinking themselves to death over a choice as simple as "should I ask her out".

MEN: you are, simply, men. You are not perfect. Your faith is not perfect. Your life is not perfect.

And none of that has to stop you from being wonderful, strong, loving. Steady.

Be humble, think on your feet, and LIVE A LITTLE. And for god's sake - LOVE people! No more of this complicated blend of logic and lust that drives you in relationships.

sometimes love looks like walking away.

sometimes it looks like staying forever.

sometimes it's making out all night long (and that is okay and that is allowed, by the way).

sometimes, it's ignoring texts and tears and pleading.

I think you KNOW what love is. . . I think it's simpler than we make it out to be.

So, anyway, here's a letter to all the men in life. Thanks to the ones who love simply and love well. And thanks to the ones who didn't, because I learned a ton from all the crap you gave me. And to the latter, I hope you learn to find that steadiness, that peace, that strength that transcends your insecurities and your flaws. I promise you'll sleep better at night when you do.

Women.

Girls. Ladies. Women.

I haven't called you here today to point out another thing that's wrong with you. Or to inspire you with cheerful, admirable self-improvement. Or to complain about all the cliche problems that we, as woman, are unfortunately plagued with. *throws back a half-bottle of Midol*

No.

I am here, actually, to... *squirms uncomfortably* to apologize.

So often, I catch myself watching all of you lovely things through a lens of cynical suspicion. I analyze you. I observe you. And I ASSUME things about you. TBH, I JUDGE YOU. All of you!

Yes, there, I've said it. I, in fact, judge you. And not for the reasons you might think. I don't hate you because you're beautiful (Girl, I love you in a Valencia Filter!) or because you're successful (GET IT GIRL! TELL ME BOUT DAT JOB) or because you have a man (I mean sometimes I hate you for that, but mostly I just hate myself hahahahaha).

WHY DO I JUDGE YOU?

Because, I think you're judging me.

*slams head into desk* I'm paranoid about it!!!

And it sucks, yes - I SUCK - because I've learned this lesson time and time again. I am most likely to give girls that suspicious side-eye of disapproval when I myself feel that I have fallen short (which is, quite frankly, a lot of my life LOL *sobs*). I've learned that when I can wake up, look in the mirror, and say "damn it's a good day to be Sarah Kane" I rarely feel the need to harp on about how pretentious, insecure, immature, ignorant, and (this is my least favorite/meanest adjective...) "FAKE" all dem other hoes are!! You feel me?!?!

*Aggravated sigh*

And, I've ALSO come to recognize that the people who I JUDGE are the people who I'm most afraid of. I'm scared of them. I'm not confident enough to stand under the fiery gaze of The Cool Girl. I want The Cool Girl to like me, and I'm gonna be a whiny little turd until I feel confident enough that she's equally afraid/aloof when it comes to me.

LOL

So... this post is not calling out any of you. I'm not here to be all "Yo homie don't judge me"

Nah... go for it... LAWD KNOWS I'm doing it to you!

But like... right now, in this moment, I think you're all FANTASTIC. No matter how irritated I've been by you in the past. No matter how awkward we are when we see each other because we're both trying to keep a front up, no matter how many times I've scrolled by your posts like "Oh HAIL nah I'm not liking her stuff pshhh she mean, she nasty".

I'm sorry, I really am.

Tonight, I posted something real, honest, and vulnerable on social media. And someone that I, wellllll.... that I had always mentioned with a lovely pairing of EYE-ROLL... she liked my post. And I saw it and immediately recoiled in disgust. How dare The Cool Girl like my post! She doesn't know me! Why, just the other day so-and-so told me something SNARKY that The Cool Girl said about me! *offended gasp* And now she has the AUDACITY to like my post. *shakes head*

And then, it hit me. The Cool Girl *doesn't* know me. And you know what?

I don't know her.

I've assumed, by her strut, her style, her tone of voice, that she is, well, COOL. And that of course, naturally, she hates me. *cheerful laugh*

But I simply don't know... and when The Cool Girl liked my post, maybe she was just bein' real. Taking a minute to support a sistah. Helping me with those likes. Maybe she felt a genuine connection. Maybe she never hated me in the first place. Maybe, she's just a girl. Like me. Judging everyone, but mostly - herself.

And I no longer hold that against her.