Naming

I had reconstruction surgery (implants) last Wednesday. It was early morning after the second Seder and I was familiar with the prep routine, but this time my mind, body and soul had been through an additional trauma beyond breast cancer treatment. My dad died just a month and a half ago from what was expected to be a simple surgical procedure.

For days, I had been fixated on the cold that had developed a week before and worried that the mucus accumulating in my lungs would be reason to postpone. As I longed to get the whole thing over with, fear was also steadily creeping in with each passing day. I had situational anxiety and wanted to name it for the surgeon, the nurses, my therapist, family and friends. Something opened up in my breath and in the pathways of my vision when I named what I felt and saw in myself.

Naming systemic realities can be an affirming spiritual practice and a necessary way to make our way together through grief, trauma, healing and all dimensions of personal and collective life. It can also be a tremendous challenge when we consider the tangled webs of narratives through time and place, the frenzy of information that can flow through our social media channels, and the judgment we face from all sides. We must continue to find courageous and new ways to name what binds us, to name what hurts us, to name what hope we carry deep in our hearts for a more just and peaceful world. And as we name, to listen and learn, to breathe, to remain curious amidst our fierceness, and please God, to wonder how we might all become more whole through our interconnectedness. Because that we undeniably are…

I started reading the Island of Missing Trees by Elieff Shafak and can’t put it down. In the first few pages I came across this passage and it spoke to me amidst the layers of grief and love I feel each day:

There are many things that a border—even one as clear cut and well guarded as this—cannot prevent from crossing. The Etesian wind, for instance, the softly named but surprisingly strong meltemi or meltem. The butterflies, grasshoppers and lizards. The snails too, painfully slow though they are. Occasionally, a birthday ballon that escapes a child’s grip drifts in the sky, strays into the other side…blue herons, black-headed buntings, honey buzzards, yellow wagtails, willow warblers, masked shrikes and, my favorite, golden orioles. All the way from the northern hemisphere, migrating mostly during the night, darkness gathering at the tips of their winds and etching red circles around their eyes, they stop here midway in their long journey, before continuing to Africa. The island for them is a resting place, a lacuna in the tale, an in-between-ness.