Relationship

might be a word that deserves our sympathy but not our willingness to use it so frequently

Photo: © David Whyte

RELATIONSHIP

might be a word that deserves our sympathy but not our willingness to use it so frequently. Relationship is a word that lacks magic: trying to describe the place where we want the most magic, but a word, that in the end, can lead us back to magic, through the very way it represents almost all the opposites of what we wish to experience.

Relationship is a word that might, if it could speak to us, admit to being difficult, unattractive and hard to say; a word that is not much use when what we actually desire in our heart of hearts, is the raw intimacy we first felt in initiating our romance, our marriage, or our creative collaboration with another.

Relationship is a word that has never been equal to the mysterious alchemical joining or the physical intimacy we try so hard to make it represent. Relationship is the guardian figure standing by the doorway of the temple of what we actually want. The word relationship is a word we often wield unconsciously as a weapon, keeping at bay what we most long to attract. Relationship is a word we use a great deal when we have actually given up on what it represents. The very overuse of the word relationship about our relationship, tells us that we are grieving what it once held for us, mourning our loss or our underlying possibilities for the future.