The Isthmus
I close my eyes and gaze into myself. I see a long narrow strip of land with water on either side. At first I think that it’s a peninsula. I notice that this is a very habitable environment in the warm tropics. I see a few, tall, palm trees are scattered along the narrow strip of land. I hear the rise and fall of the surf in mesmerizing rhythms. I smell the sea’s salty breeze mixed with flowers’ fragrances.
I look up and down the beach and realize that this is an isthmus. It’s not a peninsula. I observe that there is a landmass at each end of this long, narrow strip of beach. I become aware that, in several places, the isthmus is only wide enough for one person to walk, alone.
I recognize a solitary figure who leaves one of the land masses. I watch him journey from one end of the isthmus to the other. I see him in various stages of his trip. In the foreground, at the edge of one of the land masses, I see the man telling people good bye. There are hugs and kisses and the man lingers, not wanting to leave. There is also restlessness. The man is determined to go just as much as he desires to remain. Finally, however, he turns his back on these people whom he loves and sets his head and eyes towards the other land mass. He begins a brisk walk, putting distance between himself and the people he’s just now left.
As the man walks farther and farther, he slows his pace. He becomes contemplative and looks at his bare feet in the sand. I feel his aloneness as he passes the midpoint of the isthmus. After a time of traipsing, he looks up with anticipation to what lies ahead. I notice that he exerts an effort to see the landmass in the direction he walks. I also notice that he takes several backward looks, and I can feel his self-doubts.
The isthmus is surprizingly long and the man walks through the narrow places where only one human being can travel and still remain on dry land. I observe that the tide is in and that, at other times, there is more room to travel. At other times, when the tide ebbs, two or three can walk side-by-side through these narrowest sections of the isthmus.
The man quickens his pace as he anticipates reaching the end of the journey. The man is now in visual contact with people up ahead. He breaks into a run. The people on this land mass push out visibly onto the isthmus with arms outstretched. The man mirrors the out-stretched arms. I feel the excitement building in the anticipated meeting. I discern that the man has been absent for longer than what they all had wanted. The man’s journey ends with a welcome homecoming of hugs and kisses.
I feel the man’s ripping, torn soul as he returns to these, his people on this side of the isthmus. The man wishes that those who remained on the other side, those loved ones whom he has left behind, could understand the importance of this journey for the man. I feel the solitary pain and loneliness in the man’s heart from his traversing of the isthmus. He feels it every time that he makes the journey. Yet I also sense the man’s need to make the break and journey to the other side.
I am aware that the man journeys often across the isthmus from one land mass to the other. I know that the others never make the journey. Only this solitary, all-alone-man makes the trips. I also sense that the people at each end of the isthmus don’t want to associate with each other. They have passed judgment without knowledge and each thinks the other frightening and unnatural, abnormal. At the same time, there is a strong connection that the people on each side has with the solitary and heartsick man as he makes his way back and forth with predictability and regularity.
The sadness, the grief, and the trauma resulting from the constant separations from one group or the other compound the physical realities of the trips and the divisions of the man’s people into two distinct and at-odds groups. Regardless, he continues walking this land bridge because all of these people are important to him. He also continues his ceaseless walking because the two groups of people refuse to walk to the other side. They refuse to join and in so doing make the back-and-forth trips necessary for the man.
The man has figured correctly that this is the best that he can do. He knows that he cannot force the two peoples to associate with each other. He cannot control them. He knows that he controls only his own response to the realities in which he finds himself. Hence, he makes the trips to and from these two sets of people. People who see themselves as disparate and exclusive, the man knows are similar, together, and inclusive regardless of their self-imposed boundaries and barriers. All the while he walks, his sadness, his aloneness, and his ripping wounds refuse to heal. His two sets of loved-ones are not aware or, perhaps, they really don’t care that they are slowly killing him.
