what_is_not ovenbird We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the vessel depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the utility of what is not. –Lao-tzu from the Tao Teh Ching In the vessel that makes my life I struggle to disentangle the “almost here” with the “almost gone”-- the presence that sings with anticipation and the absence that inevitably follows. Being so close to wrapping my arms around the people I love means I am only days away from having to leave them. I can’t think of one thing without confronting the other. The joy comes with an equal and opposite despair. I have to work hard to find the “utility of what is not.” I have to work hard to make meaning from that void. But if I look close enough with my heart rather than my eyes, I see that the absence is not a vacuum. It contains a whole world. It wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for love. It is a space of longing that signals the depth of the relationships that built it. It forces attention. I have lived so many years in that hollow place that I have become skilled at presence. It may be that I have spent more attentive hours with the people I love than most others who have a gift of proximity that they don’t even recognize. So perhaps the utility of absence is this: it creates the conditions for focused presence. Maybe twenty absent minded hugs devoid of feeling are worth nothing compared to one chance to have arms around you that convey everything there is to know about love and belonging. There is space inside the “what is not” to store the memory of all that witness so there is enough to live on until the next time we share the air around us. 250722 what's it to you? who go blather from