What can I say?
bearing weight
Lisa Olivera’s most recent post prompted this one.
Can I say that on my bathroom mirror is wedged a tea bag tag that reads We can always start again and how the night I found it, at a friend’s house, I was stunned? How now, looking at it, it still feels like a nice dream, but it doesn’t penetrate so deeply as it had?
Can I say I’m struggling to be with my feelings lately? That while I know it’s important to sit with what I feel, all day long I wanted to cry and I kept moving so the tears wouldn’t fall? Can I say I feel stopped up?
Can I say opening my heart again, even just a litttle bit, feels soft and not difficult but also terrifying? Because really, isn’t it the biggest risk there is? Opening ourselves to the possibility of love?
Can I say that while I choose to open my heart I also vacillate daily between the idea of running and of staying? Can I tell you that nearly every day I daydream about running away from my life? Because it feels hard, and it feels lonely, and occasionally that threatens to swallow me whole?
Can I say that as I walk around my neighborhood these last few days, the buds and blooms appearing everywhere brings me profound joy? Daffodils and hyacinths, trees blossoming, and soon the tulips will follow. I would like to hope you’re seeing it, too, wherever you are.
Can I say something about the hope that brings me? That as the Earth begins to wake up again, I feel infused too? And how deeply I hope for a shock that will kick me back into a realm of creative, productive momentum?
Can I say that it rained all day today, and though it made me sleepy, I loved the sound? How I took a walk in the evening as the sun was setting, and how clear the air felt, as I walked to pick up ingredients to bake banana bread? That I used a recipe written on an index card by a close friend’s grandmother, a recipe that lives on my fridge?
Can I say what I feel when trying to adequately capture the …weight? How I feel the weight of the administration and executive rollouts and intentions to destroy liberties and subjugate people left and right? I feel immense pressure on my chest trying to say the right thing here, but it all feels stuck up in my throat like I couldn’t vocalize anything but a scream. Suffice it to say that to watch lawlessness and greed run rampant and see good people jailed and deported is too similar to too many events we were supposed to learn from. What’s more, can I say that a lot of the people in my life who I love so deeply are trans? And how it devastates me to watch them try to navigate a system that is targeting them?
Can I say that despite the harshness of it all, I find ways to be of service? That I do my very best where I can? That while I feel sometimes too hard and too hopeless and too weathered, that the sunset or a visit with a friend revitalizes me? Can I say that sometimes it feels like my love for life’s moments actually threatens to crack me wide open? Can I say how raw I sometimes feel?
Can I tell you how good it feels to laugh? And laugh? And laugh? It anchors me, truly.
Can I say a prayer? For you, and for me? Can I say May we be safe, may we be strong, may we be loud, may we be open, may we find peace, may we find rest, may we embrace all that we can see, for as long as we are alive? Amen.
With all my heart,
A
