Born to yearn

Longing, pining, aching, burning, pining, craving. The best narcotic there is.

Rose Dawson once said, “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.” Never in my life did I expect to be quoting Titanic, but here we are - and it’s true. The longer a woman lives, the deeper the ocean becomes. The ocean is filled with both the substance that makes it manifest, but also the tempests that rouse themselves above it.

Yearning.

Ooh, even the word itself feels like an onomatopoeia. It seems to unfold time with a deep ache, laying bare the stretch of moments spent saturated in the deep sepia hue of longing. Like a summer’s day spent peering out the window, watching the world go by, musing upon days past and future, imaginings taking hold of each cell…yearning is not simply an emotion: it is a state of being, an existential rolling hillside, the gift of living a finite human life that will never sink its teeth into everything.

Some, I feel, are born yearners. Everyone is bestowed with this gift, but some are given an extra dash or two. That’s me. You can spot a yearner from a mile away: a ponderous thousand-yard stare, slightly wistful, eternally hopeful luminosity, a regular deep sigh, the occasional hand-wringing, nail-biting. The seasoned among us are not frenetic or grasping, however. That is the tell-tale sign of a young yearner - someone who feels they must get the thing in their talons. As we mature, we know that yearning is no longer a means to an end, it is food for the soul in and of itself. The seasoned yearner is blanketed in a deep, resounding calm. A knowing that one doesn’t need the prize to feel the glory. The glory is in the yearning.

“When you’re feeling, you’re alive. The sun doesn’t care whether the grass appreciates its rays. It just keeps on shining.” ~ Ethan Hawke (whose portrayal of Jesse in the Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy championed yearning like no other).

Imagine being the sun, loving on the grass even if the grass does not appreciate this love. This is the power of yearning if yearning is not a means to an end. If the sun expected something from the grass, it would be miserable. Yearning with no expectation of fruition or relief is pure radiance. It is potent Qi.

I have about 80 journals from ages 19-30 in my storage area. It’s all smut. Detailed records of romantic encounters and how I envisioned future ones to unfold. Occasionally, the storage bin catches on fire - too smouldering for its own safety. In the days of my youth I existed within extremes of yearning - using my imagination to carry me forward on wings of desire to the next buffet. During times of starvation, I’d subsist upon the morsels of the memories. They’d act as fuel that got me to my next feast.

And now - perimenopausal and chronically ill, the subject of my yearning has broadened. I still feel a churning within my soul for all that could be encapsulated under a romantic heading…but this is now mixed with nostalgia, as in my older age I no longer have the desire (or the estrogen levels) to make it all about love, or sex. Instead, the yearning in middle age - especially in a body that is no longer as robust and healthy as it once was - is different, and hard to describe. It’s much more diffuse. It is a yearning for strong hands and a passionate mouth. But it is also the yearning for sap falling down the bark of a tree, for the curious saucer-eyes of an owlet peering at me through the foliage, for the face of a friend I haven’t seen in years, the smell of my mother, running my finger over the ridges of the shell of my parent’s tortoise, quenching thirst with the freshest squeezed juice, feeling a balmy summer night on my bare skin, the sensation of wet, squishy sand between my toes, smelling something that evokes a cloudy memory, malt vinegar on french fries at a chip truck near a lake, listening to an old song and reaching back in time with skeleton fingers, sight slightly obscured by delicate snowflakes in the winter.

When I was younger I was full of assumptions that all I desired would eventually unfold and lay itself neatly upon my lap. I now know that much of this will never come to pass. Making peace with it has turned yearning from a sandcastle (beautiful and earnest, but will wash away even under a minor wave) to a perfume (balanced, distilled, intoxicating).

In a body that cannot express itself in all experiences under the sun, yearning becomes a private ocean - a rich inner world that carries forth all creation.

Until next time,

Love and wolves.

D xx