Ahimsamsara - Voima Oy
In the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows there is the word "Sonder." It is defined as "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk."
The other evening, after work, I was thinking about sonder. I was running some errands, admiring the light through the falling leaves. Quite unintentionally, I thought of a new word-- "Ahimsamsara." This is a combination of two Sanskrit words--Ahimsa, which means compassion--and Samsara, which refers to the recurring cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth. What could it mean, I wondered, as I stood in line to buy cat food. The girls ahead of me were discussing new nail polish colors.
I could feel the season changing in the breeze off the lake. I headed for the subway.
On the platform, there was a crowd of people waiting for the train. Countless sorrows etched their faces as they walked past the boy with the guitar playing Bob Dylan's Hard Rain. He looked like a young Durer. Another face, glimpsed in passing--an etching by Rembrandt. Renoir saw that red-haired girl. Faces of saints glowed in the holy light of their screens. There was a buddha with an iPhone.
There are faces looking for someone to keep them warm for the winter. Girls in wool tights and hand-knit sweaters carry the wind in their hair.
It gets dark so early, these days. I could see the full moon over the expressway, following me all the way home.
Ahimsamsara-- unlimited compassion, infinite lives and stories...the whispered language of leaves...
Originally published by The Vignette Review 2016
Voima Oy lives just west of Chicago,IL along the Expressway and the Blue Line trains. My work has appeared in 101 Fiction, The Vignette Review, FlashDogs Anthologies, and Paragraph Planet. You can follow me on Twitter, too --@voimaoy
