Magic Words

Magic Words.

 

I love someone who does not say them. Those two magic little words: “I’m sorry”. In fact, he doesn’t say much at all. At least, not in words.

 

Words; everything about me; words. I dream them, wake with them on my tongue, in my head. I see them on the wall, in color. Like pictures. Like things I can taste. I feel them, like jewelry in a box. Eyes closed, hands dipping and running through their shapes. They are fat, voluptuous even, or small and sharp and jagged. They are light and airborne, or fast and furious, or heavy, lazy, slow. Sometimes pondered hours or days, sometimes having their way with me right now, having no consideration for my wishes but bursting forth like their own beings.

Sometimes I choke on them and cry for this insistence of theirs, for the trouble it brings me. They emerge into being through my mouth or my hands and begin lives of their own. Wouldn’t it be easier to be a placid and taciturn person? This being such a stretch of the imagination, I settle for the wish of being “temperamentally disinclined to speak”, a web definition for taciturn. It sounds like someone I would like to be yet know I can never.

 

And some of this comes back to those two magic words. “I’m sorry”.

This is the way I was raised. Say:

“I’m sorry.”

You say:

“Excuse me”, “Forgive me”, “My apologies”, “How can I make things right?”

Even if you find fault in the other, even when you think you don’t feel it, there is grace in the action, the words.

In my own experience it is disarming and “I’m sorry” can melt away a war brewing. It conveys unwillingness to offend, hurt or fight. It conveys care. It can be humbling to hear these words from another, especially when this other may have been within their rights to begin with. For me it has often instantly diffused what could have been trouble and blame, and opened the gates to gratitude and bonding.

 

But I begin to rethink my mindset about this.

 

I had shared my life with one who easily said, “I’m sorry”. About so many things, in so many ways he said it, and he could say it, elaborate on it, for hours, days, years.

He fulfilled my need of someone to talk to. Talk, he did. And talk, and talk. Where I see and feel and dream words, he seemed born with them as a large toolbox under his arm. Later he filled a vehicle with them and became his own traveling show, just he and his words. He has learned to use his words to manipulate his surroundings, and those surroundings are the people he gathers to himself. He moves quickly and frequently as traveling shows should, taking what he needs and trading his trumped up goods for whatever he can get.

He still says, “I’m sorry”.

It doesn’t mean anything, except that he wants something.

It doesn’t mean a thing.

He is “sorry” for the same things, over and over. It never changes. “Care” isn’t really present. Perhaps like me, he has observed the social value in being “sorry”, but there is no personal regret involved. It’s merely a tool.

 

But I love someone who does not say them. Those two magic little words: “I’m sorry”.

 

He has expressed at times the idea that “sorry” means you’re never going to do something again. If you were really sorry you wouldn’t.

Knowing we are human, I can’t say I agree with this belief, and find it unreasonable. Being human, I find this impossible most of the time. I also find offense in such judgment when I have said, “I’m sorry” to diffuse a situation, to make peace, but haven’t really seen a wrong in myself. After all, I had the grace to say it.

And there it is: our concepts of what “I’m sorry” means, how it should be used.

I’m challenged by his idea of “sorry”. I can’t think the way he does. It means he usually doesn’t use it, even when it would be a powerful tool. Because it isn’t in his toolbox; his toolbox has few words in it. And because while I do use tools, my heart has to be in it to use this tool, and the implication is that it’s not if I have to be sorry for the same thing all over again.

 

Magic Words.

 

I love someone who does not say them. Those two magic little words: “I’m sorry”. In fact, he doesn’t say much at all. At least, not in words.

 

Yesterday was one of those times, a time of no minds meeting in this house. My words flew and now those words will be remembered above whatever they stemmed from. As I’ve said, they take on a life of their own.

I was sorry, but not nearly as sorry as I was for what had started it. For that I wanted to hear some kind of apology. I wanted an acknowledgement that he had some part in things, that he had hurt me. I wanted some kind of discussion. But it was not forthcoming.

 

I think, “I try to be fair; what’s right is right. We should talk about this. I want you to understand, or try to, so I want to understand.”

But I never will.

 

I see the collection of small birdhouses in my plum tree is growing. It is a holding area for rustic birdhouses made of reclaimed barn wood. Birdhouses that eventually sport living roofs of succulents that I create. People love them and pay me for them. This is one of the ways I make money, and a lot has gone into their evolving designs. I am no carpenter, so I am gifted with these birdhouses collecting in my trees by the one I love.

 

I wanted words; I wanted “I’m sorry”. He went outside and made me more birdhouses.

 

This morning there was a short note by my keyboard, carefully placed. It said simply, “I love you.”

 

The words were not from his toolbox. And they were beautiful.

 

Magic Words.

 

I love someone who does not say them. Those two magic little words: “I’m sorry”. In fact, he doesn’t say much at all. At least, not in words.