Waking

Waking

Part Two: Initiation

My rehabilitation made a mistake with the silence by focusing on the absence of light. It too quickly accepted the loss and taught me to willfully strike out against the darkness...Another course of action, however, is patience. Stop moving, wait for the eyes to adjust, allow for stillness, and then see what’s possible. Although full-fledged vision does not return, usually there is enough light to find one’s way across the room. After a while, the moon may come out, sounds might gain texture, and the world might reveal itself once again, only darker. (127)

I really appreciated this passage, especially between the contrast between striking out against the darkness and waiting for your eyes to adjust. While Sanford was talking about the loss of his mobility, the passage made me think about other points in life that cause grieving. The passing of a family member, a break up with a significant other, the loss of a job, etc. There is always a tendency, at least in my life, to strike out in the darkness, run as fast as you can forward hoping that you don’t run into anything too hard. But that approach can de dangerous. You might catch yourself on something sharp and carry the wound with you for the rest of your life. The other option is to wait. This strategy comes with a hitch, you still have to accept that the world is a little bit darker, or at least something has changed. What is fantastic though, is that life gains texture. It made me think about the sounds in my life, voices of family, friends, acquaintances, and how suddenly they stick when you stop to listen and wait for your eyes (or ears) to adjust. I have distinct memories of offhanded comments from other people while I was grieving that could have easily blended into the dark, but I chose to wait and listen for their subtle textured sounds. Some of those faint words have fueled a more complete and effective healing, even though it meant it took longer to move on. I can now understand how Sanford’s traditional rehabilitation was not effective to him. It was too fast, too physical and left him without time to figure out what healing he really wanted to have. When he finally accepted that there was going to be no miraculously recovery of feeling is his legs, he wrote,

This marked the beginning of perhaps my most important realization -- that there is healing other than healing to walk again (108)

Sanford has many moments like this in his “Initiation” where he realized that his expectations of healing or what his life would look like were extremely narrow-minded, and left him missing huge opportunities for mind-body integration. As we are all prone to do, he narrowed his vision down to a pinpoint and set high expectations, completely ignoring what the experience was trying to tell him. Nonetheless, it is comforting to know that even beyond the options life seems to hand us, there is something more worthwhile  to pursue when we take a little time to stand still, wait for our eyes to adjust, and listen to the subtle sounds around us.