Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 4:02pm
Much is made of Soul Mates. These words are spoken to explain why two different people have a satisfying, free, open life commitment to one another; an affinity, an easy-loving and easy forgiving relationship.
It is also used to explain, dismiss and console an uncomfortable committed relationship, or a poorly behaved one.
Until this morning, I thought there might be something in the notion of a Soul Mate. I don't think so anymore.
This morning I sorted Jay's washed socks. I have not been faithful to sort Jay's socks, but this morning I did, and I noticed in the bright sunlight that two socks, very similar, were not an exact match. Poor Jay! I thought, thinking of him walking in a pair that might have been slightly, inexplicably uncomfortable in his shoes. The difference was negligible, but just perceptible enough to rouse my curiosity. Had I just matched a nearly matched pair, or is this sock just dryer wrung? I sorted it out. Two identical mismatched pairs.
I think when we hear and say Soul Mate, we really mean "easy" and "obvious." Is that romantic enough for us?
A Sole Mate is romantic. One person to me and for me every single day, and I for and to that One person every single day. The romance of a committed relationship is the theory that it is willing to be folded in a drawer and taken on the other one's feet in the other one's shoes, if that is the shape of Tuesday or Friday or 2003 or 2040—or one's lifetime and a graveside.
The adventure of a committed relationship, though, is the FACT of romance as a sock drawer. Unsorted, socks are very frustrating and imperceptibly wrong or obviously laughable.
Without love, the other one's feet and one's own feet, become too pedantic for attention.
Measuring personalities and thickness of life experiences, temperaments redundant on purpose, reasoning types of weave and what shift of worker or parent wove the foot beds and tall or short legs of the individual sock and pairing—this is nonsense. We don’t match, even from the primest of pumps, pups, historic or histrionic pairings. That there are patterns does not necessitate perfections and seam ripping. Patterns of behavior and understanding of upbringings should bring into play a divine quality—compassion, not control.
Forget "divine quality" being ours to bring into play. WE do not have compassion. Patterns of behavior, and understanding of upbringings (we *do* understand much), may bring us to the Good Lord, to His-Her understanding of our sorts, and now.
This brings in over-tones of gender sorting, and I am not able to speak to that, though I understand heartache and science in the intuitive sense.
Still, we sort our socks or we don’t, but we are not born with a romantic excuse not to. Personality, psychic bruising or sexual awareness do not necessitate flip-flops and cursing the makers of shoes and socks and drawers. It is my husbands and my committed feet, in our mouths or not, that fill the socks of us. The adventure is the misadventure, the haphazard daze of being human, the brazen intelligence of God's mercy through feet of clay.
God’s loving will sorts it out, not our wills. We call our self-will Love, and agree to stop or stand so close to the other foot that THE PERSON of we gets nowhere, falling, angering the other's willingness to be a foot.
A Sole Mate is able to stand alone, or rise alone, or wear flip-flops until the socks are clean and sorted. Sole Mates can go barefoot, get blisters and pedicures. And a committed relationship is not all about feet of clay. A loving will is glory.
It seems plausible and downright wise to agree with the notion that poor relationships are simply poorly matched individuals, poorly made socks, economic shortages, and so, obviously, bad decisions. Especially when both are good socks, hardly worn if taken individually, good for puppets, even ... or throwing away. They were once matched, put together, and covered the feet of THE PERSON who got places together once, not thinking of comfort, but getting there together ONE PERSON.
ONE PERSON is a Sole Mating of two souls. Socks wring and dry and toss and are lost and then show up all linty in the garage, or the move. So much shows up in the move. And pairs are found and taken upstairs in the basket or woven bag to be sorted and folded, comfortably put in the sock drawer for the feet of the loved.
Comfort is in the sorting—the caring to sort—and time in the drawer when your hands want to be showing off the wedding ring.
Sole Mates are mysteries of God, His Son in the morning on a day you did not expect to be so sunny.
Posted by nancy at August 18, 2009 10:47 AM