"I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of
people and then me, on the outside. Because how do
you meet a new person? I was stunned by this for many
years. And then I realized, you just say, 'Hi.'
They may ignore you. Or you may marry
them. And that possibility is worth that one word."
Augusten Burroughs
i cried in whole foods this week. there was a woman who made me cry. she was unkind and i lost my voice. so i cried.
but it wasn't really about her.
and then again on the subway platform the next day, at one in the morning, waiting for the train. i turned into one of the green pillars, with no one around, and quietly sobbed.
few things have felt better.
last night as i climbed out of a cab at an unreasonable hour after an unreasonably long day i handed the driver the cab fare in all singles. many, many singles. and i apologized for all the ones. but he smiled, said in his culture, such a thing was good luck. i laughed, good luck for both of us then, i replied. good luck for me having unwittingly, unknowingly passed good luck onto you.
i sat down this morning to write about these last two months. about the sadness that pressed in and what i know now. and i got some stuff out about it, but not enough and there's not enough time today. never enough time anymore, it seems. though, maybe there never was?
all i can say is that today, end of this week, i'm okay.
i don't like uncertainty. and much as i attempt to explore the virtue of the unknown and life's multitudinous shades of gray, i'm mostly at a loss. i am mostly undone by the gray.
my mother asked me this go round what the catalyst was for this bout of blue (or whatever you want to call it because surely no name really ever does it justice) and i told her some things are sacred. and secret. and must remain as such. that this time, the answer to that question, was yes, in fact, known, but mine. and mine alone.
sacred. and mine.
tom granted me a gift yesterday. sitting in his office, talking about it all, he looked right at me and said, you know, i think it had to happen. just as it did. it was absolutely vital and necessary. and it couldn't have unfolded any other way.
and there was breath in that moment. life. as i come back to myself now, that moment resonates.
today thinking on it, tom's language strikes my ear as unusual. i think mostly because, being the good therapist he is, he never really speaks in absolutes. most usually refrains from confirming or denying much of what i spout.
but he offered that up yesterday. without prompting. he handed me that absolute.
it had to happen that way.
all of life, all of my life (and i venture all of anyone's really) has to go just as it does. has to. there's comfort in that. a real comfort and release in that.
had to happen. that way.
(don't think this song in this week's parks and rec episode didn't make me cry. and lord help me, aren't april and andy just the best?).
"The day he first told me he
was starting to disappear I
didn't believe him & so he stopped
& held his hand up to the sun & it
was like thin paper in the light &
finally I said, you seem very calm
for a man who is disappearing &
he said it was a relief after all
those years of trying to keep the
pieces of his life in one place.
Later on, I went to see him
again & as I was leaving, he
put a package in my hand.
This is the last piece of my
life, he said. take good care
of it & then he smiled & was
gone & the room filled with the
sound of the wind & when I
opened the package there was
nothing there & I thought
there must be some mistake
or maybe I dropped it & I
got down on my hands &
knees & looked until the light
began to fade & then slowly
I felt pieces of my life
fall away & suddenly I
understood what he meant
& I lay there for a long
time crying & laughing at
the same time. "
Brian Andreas
Story People
it has been suggested to me that there are seasons to these lives we live. and that they aren't always clear and summer doesn't always follow spring and every once and again winter will yield more winter will yield more winter will yield more.
so i've been giving some thought to this season, to this season i'm in now. it's not clear whether it's winter or spring, summer or fall. but this i do know:
it is a season of strong women. a season in which i've been blessed by tremendously strong women. women who model friendship for me, who are driven, who take no prisoners, who laugh freely, and demand the very best. women who actually listen. intelligent, feminine, no-nonsense women. i'd met women of this ilk before. in passing i'd met them, but suddenly i am surrounded by them. suddenly i have collected a whole group of them and few things in this life have felt so important (so totally and truly lucky) as that.
this is the season in which i crave simplicity. in which i long for clean lines and uncluttered floors. in which i, unfortunately, feel a half-stranger in my own home (but know {humbly and with gratitude} that feeling will pass).
this is the season in which an unexpected october snow-fall awakened something within. demanded i order a chai latte and watch the white accumulate while standing in the warm light of the corner's coffee shop. there's something to seeing and studying and loving that cold and that dark and that dim from under the subtle yellow lights of familiarity.
this is the season i dared leave the light for the snow. into the white.
this is the season i am surrounded by, swathed in, ambivalence.
this is the season i find solace in a cabinet stocked with spices.
this is the season in which i attempt forgiveness. of myself. for the past. for my mistakes. for all that abandoned, lost time.
this is a season of reckoning. of acceptance. of remembrance. oh yes, that's who i am. oh yes, for better or worse that's what i'm made of. oh right, that's a part of my story. still.
image by Carol Reed.
