5 on a Tuesday (random thoughts on life)
How has it been so long since I’ve written? Written, deleted, written, deleted. I have posts and pages saved in my drafts folder. I have pages and pages, tens of thousands of words, my story scribbled down in permanent ink. I guess the most obvious answer is that this season of my life has become one for savouring, more reflection and less living out loud.
This morning I dropped my husband off at work, sat in a booth in Starbucks. Breakfast sandwich and cinnamon caramel cold brew. I watched people shuffle in and out, retrieving their coffee from the mobile pickup line. I sent some emails, scheduled some work meetings, the chairs beside mine filling up with people who also pulled out their laptops and began typing away. We nodded at one another, this unspoken acknowledgement that we all belonged to this work and to each other, and something about this exchange felt sacred. I couldn’t put it into words if I tried, this parallel working that happens. I don’t work from coffee shops often, mostly because I get more people watching done than actual work. I know people who love and utilize co working spaces often, and that’s just never been me. But every time I open myself up to this idea of working alongside other people, there is this collaborative energy that opens itself up to me. I had this moment when I was editing content, headphones in, where this song came on and I immediately started dancing. And then I realized what I was doing, moving my body in time to a song only I could hear, and started laughing. The man at the table beside mine lifted his gaze. For a moment I forgot where I was. For a moment it was pure bliss. This, I think, is what it feels like to be so deeply embodied.
I went to therapy this morning, hands still curled around the to-go cup of coffee, and I touched the edges of something that’s been clinging to me for months that I couldn’t quite shake. I’ve gone over and over in my head of how to handle this thing, how to sit with what’s alive in me, whether I should go or stay. It’s expressed itself in various ways. And today, unexpectedly, it found its way into therapy. The best way I know how to describe it is I saw the spark of me. I saw this electric, wildfire, explosive energy I’m just now learning I’ve always had, and the ways in which I’m growing and channeling this fire and there was this colliding moment of “Oh, there you are. I see you. I’m not going to fight you anymore.”
Where I live has been under intense wildfire presence for over a week now. It’s the thing that is ever present in my brain, and I haven’t talked about besides casual conversation with the people also living in this area. What do you think about the fires? We watch. We wait. The division makes itself more and more evident as people choose sides, and I think about all the ways in which we do this. Us vs. them, we need someone to blame, a side to take. I recently learned about the flock trauma response, seeking out a larger group of people to find safety in. I wonder if that’s playing a role in what seems to be happening, everyone taking sides, groups spouting conspiracy theories more freely, social media outrage. Are we all just looking for someone to validate our trauma and affirm our humanity? I wonder what a third way would look like. We shelter inside from the smoke. Drink lots of water, pop a Tylenol for the headache, pray for rain. The first signs of the fire I was on a girls trip with my best friend. We drove through the mountains in an attempt to get home, my only thought was getting to safety. Driving through ash, there used to be a building there and now there’s nothing, smoke rising up from the ground apocalyptic. I would have driven straight into a wall of fire if it meant getting home to my people, and this is the moment I realized just how deep my love lies. That when I feel like I am threatened or someone I love is threatened, I become a wild animal. I dragon, right in front of my own eyes. I look around, and I don’t recognize what we’ve become. My body is responding to the larger body of the world. What is happening here? I think this is what it feels like to be so deeply embodied.
I had this memory, back from my blogspot days, where I used to write in this way called 5 on a Friday. I think of the way I still write in my journal, number the topics. I think of this writing class I took once where the instructor challenged us to find 5 emotive moments in a day, 5 memories, and turn them into poems.
I recently ordered a copy of my friend Stephanie’s book, and she said once she finished writing it, she absolutely wasn’t the same person as the woman who started. And I feel the same way about my book. I don’t know when it will be done, but I do know I’m not the same person I was when I started writing. I look back on my life, on the last 3 years especially, and how much has changed in ways I never would have even fathomed, and how I’m not the same person I was back then. Something is fundamentally different about me. I feel like a toddler, exploring things for the first time. Chasing things that give me joy, pursuing things just because they are beautiful. My life looks nothing like I thought it would, but somehow that in and of itself is everything
