How to experience life mysteries instead of understanding them?

“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now, you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well.”

Ann Patchett - Tom Lake

I just finished reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I had heard about what a great writer she is, and this is the first book I have read by her. Now, I will admit that when I read, I do not do justice to all the work that the writer has put in, as I want to get to the end, turn the page, and know what’s happening next. This book—there were certain lines that I had no choice but to think twice about how beautiful it was.

Some of them are below:

The stories that are the most familiar will always be our favourites.

I understand that joy is inappropriate these days; we still feel what we feel.

The rage dissipates along with the love, and all we’re left with is a story.

Good marriages are never as interesting as bad affairs.

The story that her words unfold on paper is so beautiful that my heart is still wrenching after finishing the book. It is a family drama, not a thriller or a mystery—it’s about a mom telling her three daughters her life story along with her husband. Sometimes, the simplest of storylines has the key to unlocking the way to your heart.

Recently, books like Tom Lake and Hello Beautiful have found their way to me - maybe because somewhere unknown to me, my heart was craving to express what I wasn’t letting it. It’s like the universe conspired to let my heart feel what it wanted despite me. Why did my heart want to experience or express these feelings? I don’t know and don’t want to know - just that fact that it did is good enough. After all, the universe is allowed to keep some of its secrets, and a part of me is afraid that if the universe did spill its secrets to me, it would be too much for me.

We think we live our lives, but our lives live through us - only a tiny portion of what happens in daily life is what we experience. A whole lot takes place underneath the surface, just like a duck waddling its tiny legs under the water. I have learnt to honour these feelings when they emerge and let myself feel them. It is about being honest to oneself without asking the soul to bare itself. At times, it feels like I am a stranger going through these emotions without the need to understand why. There is peace in knowing that life is processing these emotions, sparing you the details as to why? You know - in times like this, ignorance is bliss. Sometimes, what the heart goes through is too much for the intellectual mind. It’s like you cannot spell love; you can only feel it - having to explain love is futile when experiencing it is the real thing, even if you can never talk about it. Words can only invoke the feeling; they can take you there and let your heart take it from there. Just like these books do, I wonder if the author knows what these books do to the readers or if they write these for themselves and leave the mystery for readers to experience. I wonder what the authors go through when they write these books. Here I go again, wanting to reduce the scope of the effort into thoughts.

Here is to enjoying the mysterious gifts the universe brings us—whether we understand them or not, whether we know them or not. Are you aware of these gifts that life brings?