“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry
The first light snow, innocent and small, building and climbing. Sarah Ruhl contemplates, “A suspicion that lightness is not deeply serious (but instead whimsical) pervades aesthetic discourse. But what if lightness is a philosophical choice to temper reality with strangeness, to temper the intellect with emotion, and to temper emotion with humor. Lightness is then a philosophical victory over heaviness. A reckoning with the humble and the small and the invisible.”
He told me once that perhaps the automation of the decisions he has to make with his intellect will allow for more room in his life. “More room? To think more?” I wondered. “No, of course the goal is to make as much room as possible for feeling more.”
A month later, walking through the 30-feet high banks of snow, my eyes buried in a book. Accompanied by heaviness that trudges in with the cold and makes its home across the middle of winter. Heaviness, one could call it, or instead choosing to see lightness in it as a different response to the same thing.
Later, discourse on the philosophy of language and how it applies to water. His homemade shakshuka paired with my curious feeling of pursuing home, as if it were a thing with legs that could choose to dodge me. That there is divinity in the unknown. The acknowledgement of a thing versus an acceptance. The question of, “Are you interested in the way he would dance tango, if he learned? The kind of leader he would be, and how he would dance?”
I tempered intellect with emotion.
Not so much a need for knowing as a desire to experience, I realized.
Because I already know exactly how he would dance if he did learn.
Kinnell declared, “It’s the poet’s job to figure out what’s happening within oneself, to figure out the connection between the self and the world, and to get it down in words that have a certain shape, that have a chance of lasting.”
I write because I’m chasing an immortality in the certain mortality of our love. You insist that it exists. I stand in awe of what those first tiny snowflakes became in such little time. Curiously, analogously, I know already that I must open my eyes (and myself) to find that mountainous immortality safely hidden within the tiny, humble moments that you have left behind for me as torch lights in the dark.
Only when I find it in the moments will I then be able to talk of decades. Only then will I find victory over heaviness.
As Kinnell suggests:
They said, “You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are.”
The man replied, “Things as they are are changed upon the blue guitar.”
— Wallace Stevens
I went down to the waterfront and ran along the crashing waves for a little while. The sun and the wind layer upon each other, and the white-capped water fades into the horizon. It’s strange to contemplate how close to the end of the world we are again.
The water color, the temperature, the mountains peeking out from above the cerulean, the hazy distance, and Antarctica just beyond our reach.
As I mentioned, I’m trying to listen to Podcasts while I run. Death, Sex, and Money was recommended to me. I listened to how love comes up as a subject so frequently in conversation, no matter the original topic. I listened to how vulnerable it can be, how secrets can be kept from each other in relationships for over 20 years. I contemplated Jane Fonda’s decision between “being with a funny man who keeps you laughing” and “being whole.” She chose the latter. The stories that were most striking included examples of when love surprises us, when love is bigger than we could have imagined, and that it can overcome the clichés. That when given the chance, lovers may be more understanding than you could ever expect. That you don’t have to follow the set narrative that everybody else does, you can decide to go a different way.
The wind sends a cloth of clouds over the mountaintop every afternoon, reminding us that there is something greater than ourselves.
This life is an opportunity to lean in, to face whatever we fear, to calm down the urgency that can lead to unguided action. While still leaving room for the unexpected to unfold.
“The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.”
— David Bowie
The way through love and life is more difficult to find than the way beyond it, or even away from it. I am no longer sure what parts of the path are fiction that I make up as I go along, and I am no longer sure that there even is a particular reality that I am trying to arrive at. I am no longer sure that it matters to be certain one way or another.
The moment I convince myself that what I’m staring at is definitely the edge of the world, the moment I am certain we will fall into nothingness, you quietly hand me a way to see that on the other side is yet another luscious shore.
“The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else.
The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.”“After the final no there comes a yes,
and on that yes a future world depends.”— Wallace Stevens
Exercising while traveling presents a unique challenge, and the solutions (or excuses we make) can depend on a variety of factors such as:
Traveling often can be stressful on the body; though you may put your best efforts into staying healthy, it’s easy to cite a variety of reasons for falling off the healthy diet/exercise wagon (i.e.: “I couldn’t fit a 44LB kettlebell in my carry-on,” “Soylent doesn’t come in 3oz travel containers yet,” the grocery store is too far away, Snickers bars don’t spoil as fast as spinach does).
Also, we sometimes adopt an all-or-nothing attitude that can chip away at our resolve. I find myself thinking, “If I don’t have time or energy to complete a full 30 minutes to an hour of exercise, I shouldn’t even start.”
Options seem limited without consistent access to a gym. When I happen to be traveling to a place that is not as safe or has a climate that is not as conducive to outdoor activity, I struggle to find alternatives to running.
Some things I’ve learned so far:
Per a friend’s suggestion, I’ve also been learning some primal-style workouts, such as animal flow. Though initially it looks a bit funny because you’re mimicking animals, it’s an incredible total-body workout that requires no equipment.
Being able to travel has been (and still is) one of the most amazing and life-changing privileges in my life. I am grateful for it every day. More than anything — have fun, watch the sun rise and set, and rejoice in feeling the wind on your face no matter what direction it takes you.
I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of non-feeling, or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out. To learn and to think; to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.
— The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
A turn of events at the end of the year leaves me even more contemplative and evaluative about the coming days. Immediately after the news, I went for a run. Steady feet, quickened breath, cool and heavy Houston air. I realized again for the umpteenth time how lucky I am, how marvelous it is that my legs work. I haven’t forgotten to have gratitude for it, and I hope I never will.
***
Sometime in the middle of last year, I wrote my 1,000th post on this particular blog. I finished with 154 posts in total for all of 2015. I created a new website, became a New York City subway expert (I can guide you anywhere, really!), and was lucky enough to eat at a lot of new restaurants. I did my first handstand, which has been a goal since 3 years ago. I learned more about cooking. I read a lot of books. I practiced being okay with feeling deeply, instead of fighting it.
Meanwhile, somewhat unintentionally, my writing here has changed. Instead of a hodgepodge of quick notes, it’s turned into a collection of longer, more edited entries. Over dinner one night, a friend encouraged me to publish more. I resist publishing at times because I feel censored in what I say and pressure to edit out imperfections. “Publishing makes you a better writer,” he insisted in response.
So with a deep breath, I’ll try to publish more. With intent. I thought about a few other things that I would like to work on in the coming year(s), and I’ll think about ways to make them measurable:
I’m still cautious and working on opening up. I am so grateful to the people who have inspired and supported me. The ones who continue to encourage me daily to reach toward passion and beyond my hesitations.
The only thing holding me back from doing my first handstand was trust in myself. I was strong enough, I just needed to believe that I could do it and let go of all my fear. I still find myself wondering, “What if I mess up? What if it’s not worth it?”
But hasn’t it all already been worth it? Isn’t it amazing? Falling is part of flying.
Paraphrasing Anaïs Nin: the risk to remain closed becomes much greater than the risk to open.
Life is gigantic, and we don’t have much time. It took stepping away from my computer to find the words to finish this post. So let’s get lost together, let’s play some jazz.
Cheers to 2016, and living fully. So it begins, again and again.
True story.
I started writing my last post during an evening train ride after reading some excerpts from Patti Smith’s M Train. I finished the post on the train ride back during an afternoon.
On the train, he was sitting across from me, his laptop between us. Which is a more rare occurrence than one would expect. He promised that he will write to me at least one bad poem this coming year.
We talked about Murakami, the author’s love of jazz, and how he likes fried oysters but his wife doesn’t so he must eat them alone.
I’m sitting on a train watching the night pass by, punctuated by glowing street lamps and the glittering, anonymous bodies of water reflecting them.
Reading excerpts from Patti Smith’s M Train. Is that meta? “It’s not so easy writing about nothing,” she proclaims.
A life is such a short time, and yet when he tells me to take it a day at a time the end of today always seems to be eternally far away. Some days I try to believe him when he tells me that there is something greater to it all, but this attempt at trust is not without a rising feeling of catastrophe. As Ben Lerner writes: “I felt, amid a general sense of doom, that other worlds were possible.”
I’m quiet in the mornings, thinking about how we will never truly land together. Not the way I imagined things would land. They warn me about it still: the sudden dropping, the letting go, the inevitable aloneness.
Do engineers plan for the details of exactly how the outcome looks? Or do they plan how to get there and stand surprised yet still admiring of the end result? Is there some disappointment? Most likely.
I remain in a state of anticipation (preparation?).
But I guess the moment we learn about gravity, we’re thinking again about how to achieve flight. And when already in midair, we’re looking for the safe fields in which to set down and tuck in our wings for a night.
The train is late arriving at the station. I was never meant to overstay.
Yesterday evening:
“I don’t need to assign you any homework. The possibilities of your already fluent mobility seem endless. It’s a rare thing.”
More rain. We stayed up talking about taxonomies. As I drifted off to meet you in my dreams, I felt the weight of soreness in my shoulders from attempting handstands. With satisfaction, I likened it to the soreness in my heart. That’s how muscles feel when they get stronger, so I’ve heard.
There are these moments of terror as you invert into a handstand: your head closer to the ground, your feet reaching towards the sky, your mind freaking out at the possibility of toppling over. The only way to reach beyond is to sit with the terror, practice being with it, realize how to exist with it and that you have the ability to rise above it.
We spend so much time trying to tame this world, to assign classifications, to understand taxonomies. There’s a world beyond definition, though. Below: two pieces on this strength to create openness even in the face of terror, to challenge the world as we know it by turning upside down. To maybe discover “what no one expects: the exquisite range.”
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.
– Albert Einstein
This morning, listening to blues. I know what you’re thinking about the blues. But I mean the kind that makes you want to dance with slouchy legs and melting hearts across dim rooms. So I’m dancing across the wooden floors at the office. And I can see him start to grin, wanting to dance with me. And I nod slowly, grinning back, playing air guitar to the music.
In the kitchen, she watched me grab the almond milk from the fridge. “Wow, I was looking for that. I feel like I am always looking for (and never see) the thing that is right in front of me.”
I laughed, “I think that is a general human thing.”
Today’s random tea mug has the silhouette of a wild deer, stately despite its inherent vulnerability, with antlers cradling the sky. These mugs are in rotation, and I choose one daily according to how I feel. That’s a theory, anyway. Maybe the selection is really just subconscious and doesn’t mean anything at all. More on this later.
***
There were the colors of Rothko and what I saw as the sea and the reflection of color of the sky when it is dark. Not black, necessarily, but something that doesn’t impose a color at all so that we may fill it with our own hues. My friend has a tattoo on her wrist. It’s a Chinese character that means “emptiness” but it’s idiomatic because it connotes “a space waiting to be filled,” which is arguably different.
There was you — afraid (or preferring not) to be alone, or maybe just overly accustomed to access and affection, or maybe just as a matter of coincidence, or maybe existing in another life or universe, or maybe just doing without thinking, or maybe really wanting something different — holding another woman. There are always theories about these things.
I hardly ever understand theories in practice. How things should (in theory) be possible but aren’t, or even more so, how things have never seemed possible but suddenly become so (in practice). Like how if someone uses the same ingredients as my mother does in her cooking, the end result should taste the same. But it doesn’t. Like how, even before now I should have always been able to wake up overwhelmingly sad next to someone on a Sunday morning and yet talk rationally, with love and respect, about matters of the heart. And then by the same afternoon, risk delight. Risk falling deeper into the space waiting to be filled.
There were empty highways. Rain, the kind that makes the temperature drop 30 degrees in a few hours. The kinds of blankets and the kinds of looking-into-eyes that make irrelevant the potential (and temporary) discomfort of things, like inclement weather. Like vulnerability. Almost makes them beautiful. In an absolute (because you claim not to be a relativist) way.
And at the end, there was you, grinning, because we got to dance together to the blues. Proclaiming with the kind of excellent danger in your voice that has tried to warn me since I met you: “Well, at the very least it’ll give you something great to write about.” And there is me, writing in run-on hopefully-lyrical phrases. Paying attention to the facts. Being joyful in spite of them.
But if I paid attention, really paid attention maybe I could ignore the mountain of sadness and she might entertain and distract me and I would think this is life. The romance and the sadness. I am in it now.
Poetry is just the performance of it. These little things, whether I write them or not. That’s the score. The thing of great value is you. Where you are, glowing and fading, while you live.
– Eileen Myles
Just in time, Stevie Ray Vaughan croons in Texas Flood:
Well it’s floodin’ down in Texas
And I’ve been tryin’ to call my baby
Lord and I can’t get a single sound
Well dark clouds are rollin’ in
Man I’m standin’ out in the rain
