Snow is blowing around in the sky outside my second story window. I am watching it, mesmerized, contemplative without meaning to be, wrapped in blankets, sitting. I am astonished at how quickly I can abandon my work and practice and sink into long nights of sleep and evenings of distraction. Somehow I have forgotten to be terrified of falling asleep, of sinking into a life where I do what I want, when I want; which never quite yields the feeling or results I am seeking.
We lost each other, over and over again, in a way where I wonder if we ever really found each other to begin with. It seemed like we had somewhere in the middle of it, but now in the distance between here and there, I am questioning.
I am feeling okay today, watching the snow blow around in swirls, not really falling or arriving. I am tired of planning, hoping, judging each moment and step of this transition. I am tired of holding my phone in my hand, being attentive to its beeps, signals, vibrations that bring me feedback or “I love yous” or “hey can you do this” or simple nonsense words that mask the “I am lonelies” we can’t quite get to saying. I want to make beauty from my sorrow, launch creativity from my confusion of how to be. I want to stop asking the questions, or amp them up so I am pounding on the ground out in the desert, beseeching, asking for water, for snow.
I am being reminded of this season three years ago, writing from my thin-walled room in Big Sur, about darkness and light, strawberries, sun in December, heartache, and long prayerful walks in the wilderness. We are all somehow changed, surroundings different, vehicles and clothes and histories altered. We are older, no more or less alone, no more or less arrived. The story has grown in length and in ways changed altogether. I am no longer so defined by my longing, somehow more interested in the present moment. I have found my desires altered; and myself, always somehow in new skin, looking at it, wondering if it’s mine.
In a series of over-corrections, I have found myself here, on the edge of winter in Oregon, in a single room with white walls. We are all so stunning. All of our truest stories and strivings celebrated in our simple conversations. Last night I sat in my car, in nighttime cold, talking on the phone with an old boyfriend. We don’t keep up with each other, but every now and again, we find each other in a conversation that is both easy and honest. As I spoke to him last night, he reminded me that I am not alone in my questions. He laughed with a sympathetic knowing at my mid-western way of thinking if I just work hard enough I can get it. With simple subtlety, he reminded me that I am not a failure.
Together, we celebrated the now, this world, our world in this moment of time, that we trust we’re meant to be in. This world that we made an agreement to come and be here now as mid-30’s white kids in Oregon, everyday finding the motivation for work and questions, that we now so clearly know does not lead to some tangible, well-packaged dream.
I planted bulbs in the ground last fall, finally. I waited for them, through all those months of frozen earth, to emerge in spring. I tended. I prayed. I stayed. It was a good activity, a good lesson. I was really doing it, beautifully, not without struggle, but I was there fully, in that little house with my garden, waiting.
The well-packaged dream didn’t come. Instead, I came home to the heart pounding in my own chest, lungs ever equally empty and full of my own breath, astounded by freedom and light and the things that move us. I have crossed many thresholds, listened to my intuition, and in the activity of being unseen and uncelebrated, reminded myself of my loveliness. It’s as if I planted myself in that autumn earth, and waited through a long season of possibility, wedged in frozen soil, to emerge more confident in my ability to love and be loved. Even if that meant departure and severance, from my home, my garden, and my companion who I’d dreamed and hoped alongside for so long now.
For the first time, I am learning to forgive from the inside out. To not just say “I’m sorry” or “I forgive you” to make it better or even because it feels right or true. I am learning to not extend things outside of myself until I have cultivated and tended to them inside. And ever and forever, I am learning to let go. Let go of time and age and the things that slide through my fingers. Let go of disappointment and should-of and could- of-beens. Let go of the adventure I had planned to meet the stunning adventure that was always coming to me, that I’ve always, already been in.
We are not broken. We have not failed. Me and you, we are waking up with all the right tools to meet the life we have. Me and you, we are waking up to the life we have. Me and you, we are waking up.
