Never Ending, Never Beginning
a perspective shift
Do you ever find yourself in a tunnel, a life tunnel? You are spinning through the darkness on your knees, I am imagining one of those rolling things (scooter boards?) your gym teacher used to hand out in 6th grade. I have been spinning, on my knees, in the dark, and I haven’t really been around to write about it. Two weeks ago I booked a $98 flight, ditched the carry on luggage “upgrade”, and stole my roommate’s backpack. I stuffed a few changes of clothes and a notebook. The laptop didn’t come, the newsletter stayed at home.
I really don’t consider this a job (though, the IRS does) and since I don’t consider it a job, I sometimes forget I need breaks. Breaks are nice because you come back and realize you missed the thing you created. You missed yourself and you are spinning.
As much as I needed a break from sitting in the same place each Tuesday morning and contemplating, dreaming, meditating on the possibilities and tangles of life for me, for everyone, I needed to pull a full-stop on it all. What I am saying is: I needed a new perspective. And I needed some love. I remember when A gave me that first hug in Memphis and I realized, wow, I haven’t been hugged in weeks.
The liminal is funny because when you try to leave, you end up entangled. For example: I find myself both deeply in the midst of return and escape. You try to leave, to end the starting, and the truth is that once you leave, you have to start a different ending again. Life is a strand of those, we know. But I think it has been really hitting me lately: our whole life is liminal. We will be in the middle until we die. How do we deal with that, the grief of never landing?
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I have been moving through a lot of grief. I am somewhere else now. It crept up slowly, I didn’t see it happen. Grief is a lot like love. You don’t completely see the change until you’re in it. There’s a new grief now: the grief of laying the past down to rest. Weird, this invisible landing pad.
In the fall, at the orchard, it was all death—the perfectly ripe apple being crushed in the press, the unused apple becoming a smaller version of itself: too sweet and brown to eat. Perfect for the bugs, the rot. The leaves turned yellow then red, the sky changed color for good. Now I am focused on living. That shift has rocked me. How do I survive in this never beginning, never ending world? The grief of never landing. I think, what we’ve got, is the push of ourselves. The love of beauty. The brief acceptance of happiness, no matter how short.
Questions and Things
Have you ever been in a scenario where you’ve dreamt it another way and you have to physically work not to die?
The whole Tanya Davis album Clocks and Hearts Keep Going, (it is about death and endings and this deep love that flows from those experiences) but especially the line: say yes, say yes, to help when you need it / let friends, let friends carry burdens that don’t burden them. Tanya is a an incredible poet and she also turns her poems into songs.
I could write a whole newsletter about that line by Tanya Davis. I think I will. But for now: during covid-19 our whole world has become focused on our own individual needs. I’ve been thinking so much about how we need to expand that work from ourselves into our community. The work in the world seems halted, currently. We were making such good process. But we’re stuck on ourselves. America always has been, really. But are there ways you can say yes to the ones you love? Far or close? I think our ability to show up is an ever growing expansion. There is a quote somewhere (I can’t find it…when I look up energy saving on google, I just find links to budgeting your electricity) about not saving your energy for another day. To use everything you have, and more will show. It is the expansion of self.
For all my writing friends or life friends, for this really is just an extension of the above, I often think about this quote by Annie Dillard: One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
A new poem of mine will be published soon on Hooligan Magazine! I’ll let you all know once it’s out, but I am excited because it’s not even about mothers… which is all I ever wrote about in college.
I recently re-watched AIA and this ending scene is one of the best scenes of all time.
I am thankful for this space. More next week. Love and peace to you all, as always.
Jo
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My love, on a rainy sunny day in Oregon, which is all we dream about.
thank you thank you