I Have Not Been . . .

Some phrases that you come across, in reading or listening, stick with you and rattle around in your head.

Here’s one from a Portuguese poet (unknown) that I’m paraphrasing: You are what you’ve been, but you also are what you haven’t been.

Here’s another from the novel BLACK CAKE by Charmaine Wilkerson: “Sometimes, the stories we don’t tell people about ourselves matter even more than the things we say.”

Both speak of the gaps, the silences, the unspoken, the things not done, the path taken and not taken.

What have we not been because of conscious choice, or missed opportunity, or resistance, or worse – because of fear?

It’s easy to interpret this in a broad, vague sense: I have not been an astronaut. I have not been a pilot or an underwater explorer. I have not been to Antarctica.

But that’s too simple. There are many things we haven’t been because those things have never beckoned.

But what about those that did? What about those that hovered on the edge of our consciousness, and we ignored them, or were too busy to pay attention, or too afraid of stepping out of our comfort zone? Those are the things we have not been, and they too are a part of us, as longings, unfulfilled yearnings.

What about the things we haven’t been or said or done because we consciously chose not to?  And those choices shaped who we are today. Those decisions to not speak up, to not be unkind, to not make the expected choice.

The spaces between, in art, bring an object into focus.

The cracks let in the light (sorry, Leonard, for that much over-used line).

The unspoken words bear the weight of kindness, or forgiveness, or concealment.

*

I have not been fond of washing dishes

Standing by a sink.

I have not loved chopping onions

Or folding laundry. Who does?

Maybe some, but that woman is not me.

 

I have not been to see the Northern Lights

Even though I love to be awed.

But some awe seems elusive,

Beyond reach.

I have not been able to let go

Of wanting to be a writer

Even though I write, so I must be a writer.

 

I have not walked the traditional path

From girlhood to wife, mother, grandmother,

Matriarch of the family.

Somewhere, the path veered left.

And I have not been sad that it did.

Because it brought me here

To who I am today.

 

I have not been the life of the party (no, never)

Or the one with the largest group of friends.

I have not been the chattiest, or the sweetest, or the most helpful.

I have not been wild in my youth

Or in midlife.

And will I throw caution to the wind now? Unlikely.

 

I have not been the one passed over

When grades and accolades were handed out.

And I have not been steeped in poverty.

Or known the humiliation of discrimination.

And does that now shape

How I feel that pain in others?

 

I have not been to hell and back.

But maybe that’s not true.

At some point, we all tumble into an abyss.

But those are not the stories we tell

Of where we have been.