The Comfort of Her Being

Life is a pean of reaffirmations. In its hurly-burly urgencies we often forget that what anchors us is often the humdrum boring comfort of relationships which let us be what we are. We can say anything knowing our love won’t be questioned, we can take people for granted without our intentions being put into a dock, we can let silences surround us knowing them to be as potent as a conversation.

 

But to get to that state is to first embark on a journey. Relationships take time. They have to be transversed through the hills and valleys, yes, but also through the pots and pans, of life. There are glorious sunsets to get lost in but also the harshness of singular floodlights. There are triumphs of togetherness to hold on to, as also the bouts of lonely lookouts. There are the warm summer evenings to linger in but also the biting cold of an aching heart. There is time seamlessly bequeathed but also the tiptoeing when none is given.

 

The irony of relationships is that if you survive the scrounging of lees in an unending chasm, you will enjoy the riches of the rocks of togetherness. Because what sustains a couple is a mysterious alchemy of the understandable and felt, shown and realised, the brusque and the smooth. With the ones closest to us, too much is often made of too little. The challenge is always then to not mistake  the ephemeral for a fact, just as we often mistake the windblown emotion as a determinant of intention.

 

Though the longevity of a relationship is scarcely an indicator of it’s quality, the long trudge HAS to be undertaken to understand every strand of a person’s being. It takes time to understand that couples are conjoined not only because of what they are but because of what they have survived, which, in the schemata of engagement, often means surviving each other.  Victims of love always bleed. But the survivors are the ones who hold their hands and find the sun burnishing their skin into gold.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on yearning:

• The One Who Left (Herself Behind)
• The Passing of Autumn
• And She Waited For My Call

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com

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The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Music: Satisfaction by Sascha Ende
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/339-satisfaction
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license