A musing bookended by sky
I often do this sky thing, and this time is no different. But that is such a reductive and dismissive way to state that I fucking love the sky and all it has capacity for. I’ve entertained this before, but this weekend I circled back around to the idea that I need more of it. The sky, that is. I’d never been to Connecticut before, but something about standing there next to my best friend who has spent the last two years on the other side of the country, combined with everything that was happening and breathing and alive in front of me culminated in this: what I was offered along that shore was enough to jolt my perspective. I don’t want to be boxed in by buildings all around me anymore, despite the beauty they too, exude. There is nothing like the awe I experience dancing around out in the world. Nothing like the pure joy and wonder and curiosity I discover out there.
I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this, but what I know is I have this big wad of feelings I’d like to splash onto this blank page in front of me for you to survey at whichever angle is most comfortable to you. I have Adrianne Lenker’s Bright Future on in the background playing soft — a gorgeous piece of art which I was privileged enough to see performed live last week. That experience of the world, portrayed through brilliantly composed music, is the way I’d like to pass it along. And I know I do in my own way. And I know that the desire for all that isn’t quite enough — it’s time I make some shifts to push away from all the noise.
I’m not denying what I’ve found here in these last three years, but I have served my time (for lack of a better term), and now it is time to move forward. And that’s okay! I can do well in this environment, but I am really not a city girl.
Much more lately I have been feeling my heart swelling. Expanding and contracting in different ways I can’t quite put words to. Raw tenderness abounds and wherever it is coming from, I am making more of an effort to lean into it and allow it to be. To sit with it as it is. Maybe this is emotional evolution, transformation. I don’t wish to disrespect the feelings by thinking them into oblivion. Maybe I will start to say “I have the capacity of the sky.” I like the sound of it, at least. Suffice it to say that I greatly appreciate that I contain such a wide breadth of feelings, and that even the feelings I knew I was capable of could be flung into oblivion when I experience another new, incredible thing that floors me and solidifies my deep devotion to this world where we live.
On my edit of this letter I was reminded of this quote from The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros), one of my all-time favorite books:
“You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky.”
Funnily enough, I am feeling my aloneness more palpably lately, too. In some moments I feel small, and in others, I feel unspeakably large. I find myself longing in a specific way for something... richer. Some particular community orientation, some particular dynamic, some precise love affair to whisk me away from my aloneness, and yet
I do cherish my life alone. And I have for years been working to dissemble and re-configure the belief that I need another to complete me — a belief I was raised to internalize. Returning home after a few days spent with family and friends which I enjoyed (despite its often-overstimulating nature), I am thrilled to be back in my own space, where it can be quiet or not, depending entirely on what I am feeling. When the cats are asleep and all is silent and unmoving, I find peace in my surroundings. So, if you are following along, you can see how these phenomena are inherently contradictory.
Regardless, I choose to wade forward amidst all the cycling feelings and allow myself to be with it as it comes. The hurt and the love, the awe and the grandeur, the grief and the loss, the guilt and the sorrow. I can vocalize it a bit, here, even though I almost talked myself out of sharing this musing about almost nothing. Writing, even just a little bit, feels nice to do on a quiet, soft Sunday. This, the first day of December, as I was unfortunately reminded, is tinged with something like loss, but I can sit and hold this, too.
I pray you are finding grace and peace and rest that is not contingent upon what is happening all around out there. I pray you feel motivated to aid your community in some way that does not have to do with money. I pray you are checking in with your loved ones. I pray you are tending to your own heart and body, and giving it the movement and gentleness it asks for, as that is most essential, I believe. I pray you are holding your own deep feelings with reverence. I know it is cold, but I pray that you, too are seeing the sky and everything it is capable of. I pray that in this season, as the year comes to an end, and as that carries much symbolism, most of which is capitalistic or materialistic in nature, you find it within you to move ever more slowly, and to warm your bones well, and often. The slower we move, the more we can see.
With a great swell of love,
A
