Harpocrates (Ancient Greek: Ἁρποκράτης, Phoenician: 𐤇𐤓𐤐𐤊𐤓𐤈,[1] romanized: ḥrpkrṭ, Coptic: ϩⲁⲣⲡⲟⲕⲣⲁⲧⲏⲥ harpokratēs) is the god of silence, secrets, and confidentiality, and a protector of reputations in the Hellenistic religion developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria (and also an embodiment of hope, according to Plutarch). (Wikipedia)
In the summer of 1985, when I was not yet 22 years old and just graduated from college, I went with two friends to Europe for a couple of months. We bought a Eurail pass for less than $200 and traveled with backpacks through Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and France. I separated from my friends in Paris, and while they traveled back to the US, I stayed and traveled by myself for a few more weeks, making my way eventually to Spain to meet some high school friends. I spent the solo time along the coast of France in and out of cities and little towns I can barely remember now. I spoke to very few people and relished the silence in the little rooms where I stayed, even the silence in my head. I climbed the Dune du Pilat in the Arcachon Bay area of France and remember sliding through the sand, feeling weird and alone and quiet, like some kind of traveler in a Paul Bowles novel. I was impressionable, I guess, and naive in the same way I was as a very young girl, a self-described bookworm who’s just read Jane Eyre and yearns to live in an orphanage on the moors in England instead of a suburban street in New Jersey. You’re allowed to roll your eyes. After running down that enormous sand dune (the biggest in all of Europe) in my blue dress worn thin that I wore nearly every day that summer, washed out in the sinks of pensiones and hostels and Parisian garrets, I went to an art exhibition in nearby Bordeaux and saw, for the first time, the painting Silence by Symbolist painter Odilon Redon. I was so struck by that painting and the immediate and profound peace that enveloped me. I never forgot it, really.
I was looking at Sophie tonight, and it came back to me, that memory and that painting and that peace. She was sitting in her wheelchair, getting her breathing treatment. She was gazing into space, into me, through me and I felt this pang of what? Pain? Inadequacy? Guilt? I’ve been feeling all of these over the last months years decades last few days, am wracked in silence with what? Grief perhaps a haunting grief but who the hell knows. It keeps going doesn’t it? Life. Mine hers yours. Until it doesn’t. Always the silence, though, and the eyes.
Shush. Stop talking.
I read all of the following stuff on the internets, and you can certainly search it up as my students say, but Redon’s Silence refers to Harpocrates, the Greek form of the Egyptian Horus the Child who was the son of Isis and Osiris and was often depicted as a young boy with a finger held to his mouth. Greeks and Romans later interpreted it as a sign of silence and secrecy. Plutarch then gave Harpocrates a much deeper philosophical meaning, describing him as born premature and imperfect and suggesting that he represented humanity’s incomplete understanding of divine truths. His finger to his lips therefore symbolized the need for restraint and humility when speaking about the gods and their mysteries. I guess when speaking about mysteries beyond human understanding, humility is wiser than certainty?
Like always, it’s up to me to interpret these strange synchronicities and I have a kind of drifting ability to do so even as I recognize my lack. Isis oh Isis you’re a mystical child, what drives me to you is what drives me insane.
My mind tonight has filled with silence that painting those eyes Sophie’s eyes Sophie’s silence, holder of secrets and to others the embodiment of hope.
How much I cherish your writing about Eurorailing in European summer countries! There is something so deep in these memories, all the thrills, the risk taking, the loneliness and the discovery of unknown strength.
The weird thing about the German language is the way every German noun belongs to one of three grammatical genders: masculine (der), feminine (die), or neuter (das). Growing up with this, I was stunned when I discovered, learning Latin and ancient Greek in school, that the moon is also female - when I had been led to believe in this benign old man sitting in the sky looking down - and that silence is also male, when in my world of childhood fairy tales and legends, the power of silence was always a female, elf-like power.
You were/are a much braver woman than myself. I could never have gone off to Europe and travelled like you, especially alone. I was in Victoria once (a very safe city on Vancouver Island) and was approached by an older man who wanted to buy me dinner. I was 18. I lied and got out of there, not having the wherewithal to tell him to fuck off and leave girls alone like I would now. Some things never change it seems (creepy old men).
I often wonder what goes on inside of Katie's head, beyond babies, dogs, and ice cream. It breaks my heart sometimes, still, to think that she is just putting in her time until she dies. Sophie is lucky to have you but the cost is enormous isn't it? It costs you everything.
I've been seeing a counselor and I'm starting to understand what Katie has cost me. Her diagnosis broke something inside of me, something that never really healed properly. I'm no longer the same person I was before she was born. I still carry that grief with me and will until the day I die. I remember when something awful happened and somebody said, "This must be awful". And I thought no, it's not that awful. Katie's diagnosis was awful, that's how I measure awful.
Sending hugs and love.