The House of the Heart


I often assign a small essay by writer Brian Doyle to my students. This essay, "Joyas Voladoras", tackles many scientific things: hummingbirds and their 'race car' hearts; blue whales and their 'piercing yearning tongue'; mammals and birds and heart chambers. Ultimately, though, "Joyas Voladoras" is about one elemental thing: the fragility and complexity of life. In the final paragraph to his essay, here is what Doyle tells us:

"So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with not one, in the end--not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall."

I have been thinking of this small essay a great deal lately, and reconsidering what it might mean to me at what has become a delicate, transitional time. Here is what I've come up with: I believe that Doyle is right. I also believe that I don't want to believe him. I want life to be a fight--a fight against locking down. The world is harsh--we are constantly being tested, turned away, not wanted, taken for granted. We are also constantly in communion with the world--out in it, experiencing it right alongside everyone else. No one is ever alone, yet we are always alone. It is the recognition of this contradiction that gets us fighting to open 'windows' to our hearts. It is too easy to believe that we are islands, that if we seclude ourselves or run away we can stop trying, because we won't have to worry about anyone else. I say: bullshit. All life is a trial--each day is an attempt, at its very heart.

I want life to be a fight. Every day that I am lucky enough to wake up, I want to fight to feel gratitude. I want to fight to overcome my hermit tendencies--I want to ask for help. I want to help others. I want to fight the urge to be swallowed up by one thing--one emotion, one bad moment or decision, one relationship; I am all of my pieces; I am every single one of my moments alive--beautiful, ugly, mundane. Most of all, I want to fight to keep my heart open--I want to find the people who will look inside and treasure what they find as a gift, because that's what human connection is; that's what an open heart is--a gift. Someone doesn't see it? Someone turns it away? No matter. Seek out others. Don't close the window. Lock it up and you'll never find what you're fighting for. Keep it open--be desperate to keep it open, whatever weather may enter. This is my wish for you.

Thanks for reading.

Beth