Saudade: A Reflection on Loss

"Is it possible to miss something that never existed?" she asked.

"It happens to me all the time," he admitted.

---

When I was twenty-years-old, I found a baby on the side of the road. Driving home through a sleepy neighborhood, this small child was tottering towards the street.  No one else was around. A lonely toddler in a small green shirt and diaper, barefoot and wandering dangerously close to the road.

Too young to have the ability to share his experience with words, he just looked up at me with large brown eyes as I held him and wondered what to do next.

This child was eventually handed over to the authorities. I have no idea what happened to him. He probably won't remember that time he was lost on the side of the road and some random girl stopped to hold him until safer hands arrived. But I'll remember that day forever. 

Sometimes, we lose even our most precious possession. Sometimes we lose the things we love. Sometimes the things we lose make others feel even more lost than they do us. Sometimes the things we lose don't even know they are lost until they are found.

This last year has brought many moments of lost and found in my life. Irreplaceable things released and precious things uncovered amongst the wreckage. But it has been in the most lost moments have I realized who I truly am.

Building something new is never without struggle. As this year quickly closes in, I reflect on how so many pieces of my life have been reworked. Almost unrecognizable, my life has taken new shape this year, and with that has come the reshaping of who I am. Many moments I have felt like that wandering toddler, teetering and unaware of how lost I really was, only to be found by those that were willing to stop along the way to hold me close.

What rushes to the forefront of my mind is saudade, a Portuguese word without a direct English translation and a somewhat elusive meaning. Loosely defined, this word digs into the nostalgia that one feels for something or someone that will probably never return.

Saudade is simultaneously melancholic and hopeful. The word has been featured in books, explored on NPR, and unpacked in blogs when trying to understand feelings of love, home, and loss. When we feel something so deep, so intense, that it renders us literally wordless, that is saudade. It is a longing that leaves us incomplete for life.

Saudade gives us the beautiful power to embrace that which can never be replicated or replaced. And yet carves out a spot in our lives that we can leave empty without the need to fill it with something else. Saudade connects the deep desires of the heart with the bitter longing of the being. Therefore, saudade is not as much an emotion but rather a feeling of the body.

This next year, I'm sure, will come with many new and exciting experiences. But let's remember that that which is new need not replace those holes of loss or emptiness. Our hearts are big enough and strong enough to add to, not replace, that which has been lost. 

Keep adding and feeling. All that is lost will remain right where it belongs, so long as we honor the empty space it has left behind. We are right where we need to be.

Full, Frank, and Rally

"Can we talk about something that makes me uncomfortable?" she asked.

"Of course. Smart people have tough conversations," he answered.

---

That feeling in my throat. It comes when the conversation gets real. When I have to be vulnerable. When I'm ready (or forced) to talk about something that makes me sad, or overwhelmed, or just simply drudges up a mixture of emotions that have been safest living in my own chest. It's so much easier to avoid those conversations because who knows how my counterpart might react.

The fear of honest conversations is real. Navigating these conversations with true compassion is a deeply rooted fear for so many of us. It's hard. It's scary. It requires great care in the face of deep emotions.

Last month, I had the privilege of visiting KIPP: Infinity in Harlem, New York, as part of the Teach for America School's to Learn From. Each year schools from around the country complete a rigor application process to share innovative and incredible practices to colleagues in an intimate three-day school visit. KIPP: Infinity was the first stop on the 2015-2016 tour.

Infinity is one of the flagship KIPP schools. Their staff and work is all around impressive. Spending three days in their space reminded me that there are so many different ways to education our children. It also reminded me of how much I have to learn about leadership.

Listening to a panel, surrounded by an incredible group of educations, Infinity staff could not seem to talk about the school, their kids, or education without the idea of partnership dripping from every comment. The dedication, shared vision, and absolute love they felt for one another in that school was palpable. 

During this discussion one young teacher explained the staff commitment to this idea of Full, Frank, and Rally:

“Nothing is off limits, and we can talk about anything together. Full, Frank, and Rally. We commit to have a full conversation, to be frank, and then to rally around whatever decision or solution comes out of the conversation. ”

No one is ignored. No idea or conflict or pain goes unnoticed. That would be unacceptable and they have built a culture that fosters the kind of relationships in which hard conversations take place with compassion. Conversations are real and honest. Probably most important, solutions are reached with a collective desire for action. It was obvious that this protocol worked, and even more obvious were the results it yielded in the love this staff felt for their school community.  

I have been thinking about this for the past month, letting it sit heavy on my chest. How many times are my conversations not full and frank? How often do I leave a tough conversation without something I can all rally around? What am I doing to create safe spaces of controlled conflict and powerful solutions of action?

Holding even more weight for me was the personal reflection this caused me. How can I hold the hearts of others gently enough to be full and frank in a way that is based in love-- or, in the goal of "rally"? 

If our goal is come out of every tough situation with something we all rally around, imagine how powerful our subsequent actions could be? Imagine how the reach of our conversations and the depth of our relationships would grow.

What we rally around could be the thing that changes us, satisfies, or just fixes something that is broken. And the process of getting there could be the healing we have been looking for.

Pages of Our Hearts

"You are just a walking motif," he mused.

"If you only knew..." she thought to herself.

--

Books are a beautiful thing. Language, art, fiction, poetry, proses all strung together and bound for us to enjoy and learn from. If you are anything like me, walking into a room filled with books is an excitement unlike much else in this world. There is a mystery and restlessness to discover what lies behind each cover.

Authors and artists and specialists in all fields pour their hearts into writing and creating books. Some take years to finish. Some almost no one will read. Some seem to be read by everyone we meet. Indeed, there is something special about the books we keep in our homes and in our hearts.

So, here's the truth: I tear out the pages.

I understand this is really upsetting to people. But it's true. I rip out the pages. I shred them. I draw on and blackout the words. Again, if this is baffling to you, I totally understand your confusion.

But here's the thing: What happens when we finish these books? Maybe we loan them to a friend? Or give them away? Or put them on a bookshelf? And how many other people get to enjoy this exact book we spent so many hours with? Probably very few, if any, right?

So what if you pulled out your favorite pages, or images, or quotes and created something with them? Put it in a frame to tell a different story. Shred it and make a centerpiece. Build a new poem from the prose and mail it off to a friend or lover.

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The truth is, if we just close the book and put it on the shelf, we hide everything great it taught us and every beautiful word we learned from. When we tear the pages out, it becomes something we can make our own and display for others to enjoy. It becomes a part of our hearts.

And that is always worth sharing.

When Life Shatters Art

"Could they ever get close enough to touch, or would they fall on their way to one another?"  She ached to know.

---

Sometimes art isn't just art. And love isn't just love. And pain isn't just pain. These experiences and pieces of who we are all merge and form cemented layers. They build and thus create who we become over the years of our lives.

Everyday we walk away from things. Sometimes these are big things. Sometimes people. Sometimes we just make a choice to not eat that piece of cake or walk away from that cigarette we're craving. Everytime we walk away from something we are choosing to walk towards something else. Most of the time, we really have no idea what that means.

For Marina Abramović, sometime in the 1970's, she walked away from her boyfriend. But this was no average break-up scene. In one of the achiest tales I have ever read,

“They decided to go to the opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and walked towards each other in the middle. When they met, they gave each other one last embrace and parted ways. After that moment, they never saw each other again.”

— http://30-years.dailymegabyte.com/ex-lovers-meet-each-other-after-30-years/

Abramović is a famous (and incredibly brilliant) performance artist. This relationship, and break-up, almost 30 years ago, was a layer that became a part of Abramović. Everyone we meet becomes a part of us. The people we love don't ever disappear, even when we walk away. They just become another layer of us.

She recently presented The Artist is Present, a piece in which she asked participants to sit across from her in silence for 30 seconds.

If you watch the video below, you will see how 30 years of life can be shattered in 30 seconds of art. 

Opening the Exit Door

"Are you willing to see where this leads?" he asked.

"I don't know how not to," she answered.

--

This month I had the pleasure of spending a bunch of time in New York City. I originally went to help a friend move from Harlem to Chelsea. Little did I know that we would be able to see the High Line from her new place or that I seriously wouldn't want to leave (for a thousand reasons other than the proximity of the elevated walkway). A trip that was supposed to be just three days ended up being extended to almost a week (...well, maybe I'll just leave tomorrow...I'll just spend one more day and leave tonight...Um, do I even have to leave at all?), which allowed for plenty of opportunities to explore. And, of course, I found myself wandering to all the spaces that screamed art.

My recent travels have brought me to understand that I am drawn to spaces that hold words and spaces that hold art. Anytime I find a hybrid of the two I am unable to not explore further. To this end, I found myself wandering into an unassuming building that Google Maps told me held Aperture, an art gallery and bookshop (win). Upon entering, I was unsure what the building's primary purpose actually was, as there was nothing in the lobby, no real directory, and just a huge stairwell. 

Even more confusing was that as I reached each landing, there was a huge door with a very intimidating sign that read, "PUSH TO OPEN - ALARM WILL SOUND," with a crazy exit man dashing out of the door during what can only be interpreted as a real emergency. There is something inherently intriguing about spaces that have been deemed "off-limits." Maybe it is just me, but I always want to know what lies behind the DO NOT ENTERs and the closed curtains.  

Let me stop here and say I love to open these doors. In most causes, there is no alarm and it is a huge ruse to keep the rule-followers moving along. I can't help but find out if an alarm will really go off, and if it doesn't, where the door leads. So at the fifth floor, I opened the door, and walked into a gallery. Huge photographs and books everywhere, all natural light streaming in through the expansive paint-chipped windows. I was in heaven. 

As I wandered through the rest of the building (opening all the doors), I found hundreds of pieces of art in thirty-two (actual count) galleries. I spent three hours wandering in and out of these spaces, some as small as a storage closet and some larger than my whole apartment. No one said hello to me, but no one asked me to leave either. It was wonderfully exhilerating.

In this life, there a lot of exit doors. Most seem dangerous, or scary, or offer threats for opening them. Exits that warn us that they should only be used in extreme cases and only when there is an emergency.  There are consequences if we are reckless in daring to open those doors under other circumstances.

Sometimes, though, the exit doors are actually just an entrance to something more incredible than we could have ever imagined. Is there a risk? Of course there is. The ultimate risk, though, is missing the enchantment that could be waiting on the other side.  

(h/t to JAR for the title of this post)