olympic sports, redux

sadly, in the same way that "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" had little to do with motorcycle maintenance, this post has little to do with olympic sports... but no one would read it if it said "teen angst"...

today i had cause to pause and reflect on the nature of life, the universe, and everything in it, and more specifically on the value of koans. as a refresher for those of us who've been away from our temples for a few months, koans are zen buddhist tools used to assist a student in attaining knowledge that cannot be achieved by rational thought (and therefore only by intuition). koans take the form of questions, statements, or stories that often make no apparent sense, the most famous of which is of course (paraphrased) "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" (the answer, obviously, is "grapefruit")

just for fun and out of morbid curiosity i asked myself

"self, what is the sound of two hearts breaking?
"is it the moan of pillow-muffled sobbing?
"is it the sniffling of loosened snot?
"is it the hollow echo of words flung in anger?
"the restless pacing of an unsolvable problem?
"the choking back of unexpressed sadness?
"the footsteps walking away down the hall?
"the zipping sound of a closing suitcase?
"the tinkering of keys left on the counter?
"the dusty creeping of once-warm sunlight poking accusingly into darkened corners?
"the sound of a door slamming as love figures out the latch and lets itself out?

"or is it the sound of nothing where once there was something?"

i probably thought about this with too much logic, and not enough intuition, or maybe i've been away from the temple too long, because i don't have the answer. i'm just saying...