The Irish word for the collective we, "sinne," invokes a sense of communal strength. Unlike the pronoun for us, the emphatic naming of "the we who are" brings unity where there might not be any. It also invokes the smell, feel, and dim light of a favorite Cork haunt for Maura and The Other, a place too tiny and easy to be in to make us want to ever leave.
Maura is currently sitting in her tree house while baby-beer-Borscht tries to keep up with the flow of the whiskey and The Other celebrates in a state so far from the ocean I doubt its existence. One step away from collecting the dole, Maura is very accustomed to this sort of solitude these days.
Narcissus somewhat recently mused in a somewhat Coleridgian manner about what happens when one is confronted with the unexpected. Narcissus advised us to try on that hat, our metaphorical Other, that presents itself in the corner of the room. Maybe it's a hat that's sat in the corner of the room our entire lives, a constant comfort that we can't quite manage to put away for awhile. Maybe it's one that we struggle with--we can't decide if it fits or if we're too stubbornly forcing it one way, only to see that it really bends another, and maybe, for the best. Or maybe it's just sitting there, quietly watching us, letting us be, letting us prepare for the real confrontation that comes from being with the Other.
In one form or another, The Other, Narcissus and Maura are all again facing the unexpected. Shocking, I know, since we so commonly stay in one place, with the same people, the exact same goals and the exact same desires. Unchanging we are. Fortunately, there is as much propensity for change in this trio as there is in the Irish weather. This tendency, or rather, necessity, to change allows for perpetually renewing relationships.
The other day, The Norse and The Other advised that Maura "roll with the punches" in order to deal with her unexpected situation. Roll with the punches. See what comes, come what may. Is this near Buddhist acceptance, wise in its openness? Or just aimless wandering? Or the stubborn inability to make a decision with real consequences? Regardless of Maura's motive for refusing to roll with the punches, she's trying. Maybe going with what is presented can be proactive. Maybe it's all we've ever been doing, but now it looks weaker, less courageous.
It seems that one might need, say, an army jeep to get up the courage to drive out to the boonies and tell someone how they feel, but maybe it's not a huge risk, as we've always thought. Maybe it's a punch. We're given it, and we see what we can do with it. It seems one might need balls of steel to accept someone back in their life when they've wronged us before, but seem to be changing. But maybe it's not so courageous. Maybe it's being weak, being open, rolling with it. And maybe it is more courageous to stay quiet with that Other, watching from the corner, waiting, estimating the risk worth taking. But maybe Maura just needs to accept that moments of weakness are perhaps the only learning opportunities.
The holy trinity has been a trio, a we, a safe haven from the sharper "real" world of shadows and strings. The strings among us are loosening, and we've no more than the collective naming, the "sinne" to claim community. But maybe in letting those strings loosen, those spaces between us open up, we can allow for some weakness, for those moments when our gut tells us to do the thing we think we shouldn't. What an interesting life one would have if they perpetually did what they thought they shouldn't.
