A boy and his cat, a talking donkey, and a snake

The last day of class ended yesterday. Now what's left are piles of papers and projects to grade, finals next week, and then I leave for Greece and Italy. I don't know how I feel. It's been an intense year, and often I've felt like I can only see a few feet in front of me, but now it's ending, and there's a feeling of loss. I've always had a hard time saying goodbye, whether it was moving, the end of a schoolyear, the end of summer, of camp, the end of a play, or the loss of a family member or friend.

I've been dating someone. I'm smiling as I write this, and yet I also find myself hiding sometimes. It takes me to places I've rarely been in my life, memories I've tried to shut out or ran from. Sometimes the closer you get to someone, the more you realize that there are parts you can't know about them, and parts you can't share. I've felt this before, almost always with my closest friends. It's a lonely feeling. We're broken people.

And yet once, a donkey spoke and his rider wasn't surprised that he spoke, but was more surprised at what she had to say. "There was an angel in the path about to kill you, and I saved you. So why are you beating me?" The man had forgotten how to see and hear. His senses were dulled. He was out of tune with the world around him.

A snake spoke in a garden, and the woman (and man) weren't surprised, but what he had to say made all the difference. He promised they would see, but instead we've been groping in the dark ever since.

There was something more, and on some level, I think we all feel this. Maybe we were more connected once: to animals, to each other, to the grass beneath our feet and the trees that swayed in the wind, to God, to the universe around us, to the things that we can't see and no longer believe in. Maybe we could even feel the grass growing, the trees stretching up to the sky, from the depths of their roots to the tips of their branches, and their growth was good. The food from their branches didn't just give us nourishment, but also deep pleasure. The water sparkled on our tongues and sang in our throats, and made us laugh. The marching of ants and the building of webs could distract us for hours in deep fascination.

We feel this absence deeply, and yet try to drown it out at the same time: through music, images, words, media, coverings that remove us from the outside world, from nature, from the wild beauty of it . . . because the memory of what we lost is too painful. A deep part of us longs for it: we have commercials offering getaways into the mountains and outbacks of the world if we buy the right mountainbike or off road car; we have well toned and tanned men and women sitting by the side of a pool or on the beach, sipping margaritas and relaxing in a paradise of contentment. We have offers for products that will make us feel sexy, feel comfortable in our own skin and reconnect us, usually sexually or romantically, to each other. We still long to be connected.

For the moment, I'm caught between this absence, yet also aware that there are still glimpses of presence in the world. I've smiled more this month than I have in a long time. When I'm with people I care about there are long periods where I feel peace, connectedness, like I've come home.

There's a boy I know who has a special relationship with his cat. When the boy leaves for the weekend, the cat wanders around the house, looking for him, crying for him, wondering when he'll come home, and when he returns, the cat follows. The relationship we once had is broken, but glimpses of it remain. The cat doesn't talk, but almost.

There are words that heal, words that communicate value, words that once spoken can wipe away mounds of fear and doubt and bring grace to a situation. None of us moves through life without deep scars and wounds along the way, but the glimpses that remain of what once was give us hope that someday it will be restored again.