healing

The Great Pause

I have made a considerable mistake this year, one that will inevitably leave me feeling much better by year’s end, and very likely frustrated until then.

I have done that stupid thing I do in regularity wherein I call down a Lesson from the Universe onto my head. When I made this declaration at the top of the year, it felt foolproof. The shenanigans began immediately and I feel begrudgingly certain I heard the tinkling of the Universe laughing at me in utter disbelief at my calculated misstep. And so here I am, gritting my teeth and reminding myself I asked for this in a year I have declared, “The Great Pause.”

It does not mean to quit my responsibilities, but rather to give space to make my life sustainable. A few examples, that I would Pause

  • before eating.
  • before saying “yes” or “no.”
  • before a song.
  • before a show. And after.
  • before bed.
  • before getting out of bed.
  • mid activity when another task threatens to interrupt.
  • before beginning a new task, and after it is complete.
  • to hear what someone is saying.
  • for water.
  • on beautiful scenery.

It is to say, “Let me think about that,” or “I will consider it.” It is to exercise patience and restraint, but not at the expense of Joy or enthusiasm.

Its origins are simple. Early last December I went under the knife for a surgery that would take 6-12 weeks to recover. I was unable, and in fact commanded not to, lift more than 5 pounds for 6 weeks. I could not run. I could not do my regular yoga practice, and to my surprise, I could not even sit up for long stretches of time. I could not do basic chores or tasks. But, I could walk, and I did so constantly. I could also gently stretch, read, write, listen to music, and mosey about the house and our small patch of woods in small slow strides at a meditative pace. That’s to say, I could think. That’s to say I could finally think. For the past year and several months, I had a fog so thick across my skull that I could barely complete a simple task without succumbing to mental and physical exhaustion from the effort. I pressed on. I completed my work. I piled on more work. I told myself I am just being lazy. Maybe I was depressed. Maybe it was perimenopause. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe it was sugar, or not enough yoga, or not enough sleep, or not enough of whatever due to a late afternoon symptom the algorithm was choosing for me. After surgery, and it was not right away, the fog lifted. I would like to credit the mishmash of an oversized fibroid-riddled uterus being removed as the culprit, but it wasn’t that simple. Because as I traversed the long stretch of December, not only did I watch as my incisions slowly mended themselves, but the stillness gave a full platform to watch my brain do the same. I felt calmer, able to navigate my own thoughts– happy. The surgery was a necessity for a physically and emotionally painful part of my life now over. The recovery was a necessity for a mentally and emotionally painful part of my recent life: I was burnt out, and it wasn’t over yet.

On New Year’s Day, my favorite holiday of the year, I created the above curriculum, prescribing the troublesome areas I thought might relieve the strain on my life. It would not be more bubble baths and chocolate. For someone who is conditioned to overcommit and overachieve, undoing the damage of burnout isn’t solved by piling on more “You should just”s; rather, it requires unwinding, restraint, and this unfathomable word “No” that I am completely convinced will lose me all of my work, friends, and self respect. It requires building a small emotional moat around me filled with time, quiet, space, and– with a little luck– boredom. It also requires thinking clearly about my priorities and commitments, and deciding which ones are important to me– writing, creativity– and guarding them as fiercely for myself as I would for someone else. That’s to say, it is to treat myself as kindly as I treat others, rather than giving myself the scraps. In this way, I am putting on my oxygen mask first so that I can assist others with theirs without passing out or… well, burning out.

Simple, right? So damn simple. And then walks in the Fox. Or maybe the Cat.

In the last decade, I’ve adopted an animal at the top of the year, usually New Year’s Day. It’s an animal that is obvious and reveals itself to me plainly, and often in person. For instance, the first year I began this, a kettle of vultures kept finding its way into my Nashville yard. Over and over again I’d drive home from work, and there they would be– unhurried, somber, and occupied with the task at hand. Soon, they began following me around the city– to my boss’s house where I was a nanny, outside restaurants. Then, they began following me on tour, across state lines and back again. Their presence, or maybe my presence of mind, made them unavoidable. So, I adopted them. I was going through a divorce at the time, figuring out the beginning of my life with my new-at-the-time Someone, living in a straddled ambiguous state of deterioration and rebuilding. The vultures became my visualization of a clean up crew, a necessary presence of death in the midst of life, and even kind of just a cute thing to watch. They have acidic, sturdy stomachs and a purpose to push forward in the darkest of places. Quite a mascot. I found their existence a metaphor and a coping mechanism, and I held tight to my love of them through the duration of my transition, all the way to a year later when I was selling everything I owned and moving into a tiny camper with my dog, my Someone, and the open road for years uncertain to come.

From there, Coyote took over, a mischievous creature of adventure, creation, and the unexpected. This trickster kept itself as my animal companion for a couple of years, until others came along. It was as if once I learned the lesson, a new lesson waited, and a guide to teach it to me. I’ve become more regimented in my predictions and seeking, making January 1st an arbitrary turnover for “my” new animal. Last year, the Carolina Wren quite literally was banging on my front door, tapping the glass to get inside on New Year’s Day. It was an animal that taught me about survival, using my voice, and nesting closer to people. For the circumstances of waning health, a too-full schedule, and an authoritarian government implementing itself in my wild and free country, Wren was a great teacher and companion. Wren also wore me out.

When I woke up New Year’s Day, I’d already begun The Great Pause. And I was certain I already knew my animal, too. I glazed my eyes across the grey squirrel. I missed the Great Horned Owl my Someone saw on our staggered walks down the path. I averted my gaze from the crows overhead. Because I was looking for Fox. I’d already picked the perfect journal cover, fit with an illustration of a fox, and was sure that after a month of rest that what I really needed was some elusive, isolated movements in faraway woods, some cunning planning to avoid the overwrought mess I’d made the year before, and also a sly way of slipping out of obligations without anyone feeling offended.

I saw tiny footprints in the snow of our driveway.

Fox, I thought, but they were too small, too meandering. I knew they belonged to a cat. I’ve seen a little grey one wandering about the property for well over two years. But I didn’t want Cat to be my animal. I wanted Fox. I wouldn’t even know what to do with Cat. I continued walking, at least a three mile trek out and back, looking for signs of Fox, and found none. I went to my studio and bound my journal with Fox on it, without confirmation, but consoled myself that by declaring The Great Pause, it would make sense that my animal hadn’t appeared right away. The second day, I tried again, this time walking with my Someone.

“Look at those!” I pointed to the snow, “Fox tracks.”

My Someone agreed, but I saw his skepticism, and I felt dishonest, so I followed up with a mutter, “…or maybe they are a cat?” But we were well into the woods by then, I coaxed. Why would a cat be out this far? On our way back again, I found a small borough. “Fox,” I said, matter-of-fact. But it was clearly Chipmunk.

When we returned, annoyed and determined, I called it. I began writing, and had just laid my pen down to declare the Year of the Fox when a black mass appeared less than a foot from my studio window I was leaning against to write. I jumped, my heart leaping into my throat, and stared eye to gleaming green eye with a black cat. I’d never seen it before (and not since), but it paused, took its smug time looking back, flicked its tail, and meandered down my driveway.

So, The Great Pause. No losing my cool. No rushing the process. No rash decisions. No hammering a Fox into a Cat shaped frame. It is the Year of the Cat. I checked my woo-woo animal oracle cards, consulted the internet, and assessed my own bias of the creature. What returned to me was this– that cats are known to walk between two worlds. They are guardians of energy, protectors of spirit, independent and intuitive. And, annoyingly, they take great care of themselves. Not in the elusive out-of-sight way of Fox. Cat blatantly takes care of herself no matter who is watching, and insists upon her needs to the eye roll of others. She knows what I didn’t know. That to honor personal well being and treat self with respect, one gives themselves the luxury of time. Cat never doesn’t have time to take care of herself. And she gives no shits if anyone judges her for it.

The Great Paws.

Naturally, I fought it. My second mistake was telling my Someone. So now when he sees a cat, he is quick to point it out, to remind me of my oath of caring for myself. He pointed at one peaking from behind a friend’s woodpile, just as I was about to offer up time that I did not have. He found one walking across the driveway as I was about to relinquish my time for writing to do a sporadic clean of the house.

One particular evening, we were having dinner with friends to talk about a new project. We’d just gotten home from tour, had already delayed the dinner twice, and barely squeezed in the time again. We were overworked, and it was only February. The project was exciting, and our friend’s enthusiasm was contagious. Our role would be something beyond our comfort zone– not a problem– but also potentially out of our technical ability. But still the conversation rolled forward. Internally, though I wanted more than anything to say “Yes,” my brain was screaming “No.” Not because I didn’t love the idea, but because I could sense that this commitment would mean that I would sacrifice time from some writing I was, until then, fiercely protecting. My Someone seemed to hold no reservations, and I suddenly felt less trusting of my intuition. I internally conferred, telling the wildly flailing “NO” voice to quit being so hysterical, when at once our friend’s cat charged toward me and leapt into my lap. Perhaps my friend would be less than happy to know that his cat created a small mutiny of his wishes, but I had my answer.

My Someone and I took several days to think it over, check the calendar, make it work. When we leaned into “just say yes,” I thought of the cat. I knew this was a big send of a sign, and to ignore it would be to cut myself off from the magic of Listening. This was a test.

In the end, we made a smaller commitment, one agreeable for us all, and one I felt confident that Cat could not only comply with, but would appreciate. We now go forth on this project with joy, not begrudging, with the luxury of time.

I was getting used to this. I was figuring out how to be Cat.

And then Fox showed up.

My friend Bryan is an excellent source for all things spiritual. He will wander in the depths of woo-woo and speculate about the appearance of a hawk on a branch with me for miles of time, and I am deeply indebted to him as someone who validates my speculation of Magic in the ordinary. So when I told him about my Fox/Cat misdirection at the top of the year, he became suspicious.

“But Fox,” he started, and I thought I know, I know, I know.

Fox is a trickster. Same at Coyote, he is elusive and will misdirect for the sake of seeing what creative muck can come of it. I tried to assure Bryan that– well, yes, we’re on the same page. But really, truly, the misdirection from Fox was to get to Cat. That’s where that little devil was leading me. And it felt true.

Except that I have now seen six foxes in two days. Each time I see them trot across the meadow, down across the ditch, or– even once– literally walking with purpose right down my road in front of my house, I think Oh no. He’s not done.

He’s not. The role of Fox is to take what you think you know, and to make you wonder if you know it. Since the beginning of the year, Cat has allowed me the following:

  • a regular writing practice
  • a consistent yoga practice again
  • time to read
  • time to take longer walks
  • a better diet
  • time for my friends

I’m grateful for it. But Fox, it seems, is dissatisfied. As I have been taking care of myself, with larger swatches of time, Fox has entered the picture in full spring rain and has pressed– What if we dream bigger?

I might argue that it’s a result of Cat. That the time I had an outright longing for is now in my possession. Creativity needs space. But the imaginings I’m having do not require the space of Cat, cuddled up in its domain. These ideas require a bit of scouting in the underbrush, surveying the boundary lines, a quiet mischief.

Turns out, mischief is a shared trait of the two, Cat and Fox.

So I have been following both sets of tracks.

Maybe the mystical is all in my head. We each create our own life, in most ways, and shape our perception with every “yes” or “no” we give to what the world is offering us. By throwing off judgment and tracking down these animals, pausing with every step to view where I have been taken, I have discovered a few things that make it worth continuing in this atmospheric, delightful nonsense. Like waking up and feeling happy to leave my bed, instead of already exhausted by the day. Like becoming reacquainted with things that used to make me happy– I’ve recently gotten my old film camera fixed, and have begun experimenting with a Holga my Someone found at a yard sale years ago that I was “too busy” for before. Like tasting my food again. Like sinking into a couch by a fire with my friends watching a movie and not calculating my enormous to-do list. Like relishing my work as if it were play– even the soul-sucking screen time.

A couple of years ago, my dear friend David– my other favorite spiritualist– saw in me my propensity for the mystic as we walked on a chilly beach on Plum Island in Newburyport. He unabashedly shared some of his own experiences, emboldening me to share mine, and we made a small pact to encourage one another to follow the noble pursuit of belief, of seeing what is not visible, and to reawakening our spiritual side. In the time since, I have felt I’d let him down. In the last year, I was afraid I’d lost that part of myself entirely. But when I thought back on that conversation, it would rally something within me. I realize now that it has taken nearly two years to rearrange and make enough space to follow through on our pact. It has taken burn out, a major surgery, and utter depletion for me to realize that this is not something I can try my hardest to accomplish. It’s not a to-do list, or even a standard to live by. Rather, it’s a stroll, a meander. It’s a slow opening. It is one small creak in the door. It is a following of strange tracks in the snow.

It’s a Great Pause.

When The Saints Come Marching In

We gathered in jackets and blankets laid over our knees, a woodstove crackling in the old shed that was decorated with fairy lights and warm, small illuminated globes. These women around the the table, scattered from Los Angeles to London, had become a quick-made family to me in our short five days together. We walked the Isle of Iona, explored seaglass on the shore, inked billowy blues on big soft sheets of watercolor paper for hours in the afternoon, stitched books, shared of ourselves over little afternoon cakes and tea.

This night, we gathered for our second to last dinner together, a surprise setting on The Green Shed croft– a mystery barn where swallows make nests in the rafters, sneaking in where the drafts come through– chilly and magnificent. Pauline had outdone herself this night– radicchio salad, roasted potatoes on beet puree, pickled shallots with lavender, buckwheat tabbouleh, and chickpea tagine. I didn’t mourn the end of this bookbinding retreat to Scotland yet, because I had no concept of time except the moment I was in. And in this moment, as we licked our plates of rhubarb pavlova with coconut cream, we were holding a space of jokes, stories, and songs; one each after the other sharing. Kristin told a joke. My teacher shared an old, heartbreaking Scottish lullaby. I sang a short rendition of “Oh Shenandoah” as I shook with stage fright. And then my teacher’s husband, John, spoke of the particulars of the island we sat on– some history and lore. He’s been running this hostel for 30 years, right on the sea, with Hebridean sheep in the fields and travelers streaming in and out. John loves the travelers. “They are part of this island’s story as much as we are,” he asserts, “Iona would not be the same without them– without you.”

The radical welcome to such a secluded place is no small gift. I feel like an intruder most places, sometimes even in my own body. To be not only welcomed, but fed, comforted, and assured of my role in a foreign place gave me an overwhelming sense of responsibility. It made me care for this place as I would my home. To welcome the stranger, I realized, was not only to benefit the stranger, but to benefit oneself. It is an invitation to care for a place mutually, and to let it become a home– whether for a night or a lifetime. It is also to be able to accept the gifts of the outside world to the benefit of one’s home.

John noted one such exceptional visit. He’d recently divorced, was turned inward, unsteady. A group of Tibetan monks had made their way to Iona, looking for a short stay. The first order of business was to negotiate a price. They would trade two nights at the hostel for free in exchange for a cleansing of the place– of the barn we were sitting in. John quickly agreed. What loss was there to accept a gift of spirit and experience?

On the night of the cleanse, he gathered with the monks, unsure how the evening would progress. He’d expected prayers or smoke, incense and droning. But what took place instead was a lot of noise. The monks lugged in drums, instruments and bodies and began playing, smacking, singing, yelling until the place was cacophonous, ripping and slapping against the metal slabs of wall. “It was nearly unbearable, the noise,” he remembered, but then allowed himself to be taken.

This step, he learned, was to gain the attention of the gods. Some of those gods, the very good ones, were extremely high up and required a significant amount of sound to draw their attention this far below. I looked at the ceiling as he recounted, imagining the gods looking through, visualizing the wide sky of Iona above.

Once the noise has been made and the attention has been gained, the monks begin the next step of luring the gods in. Here, they offer hot, fragrant rice, spiced smells, and quiet their cymbals to beautiful, tranquil sounds– the sound of music rather than noise. The gods drift in, though I’m not sure if they come all at once or one at a time, but either way, by the time this portion is over, several gods are culminated in the room. Their expanse and number shoves the gargoyles from their dark corners and pushes them out. Many of the gargoyles leave simply for lack of space– but most flee in fear. No evil can prevail in the fullness of good, not even in the crevice of a shadowy barn on an island in Scotland. The monks hold these great, good gods for some time, as the gargoyles make a cloud above, waiting for the gods to leave. The gods enjoy themselves, resting and eating and smelling and listening. The gargoyles grow impatient. And then, at last, the monks light the incense, allowing the smoke of the tranquility within to lift up to the dark cloud– and the gargoyles scatter. It takes patience, this part. Patience to wait out the evil above, and patience to be hospitable to the gods within, and patience to know when the darkness above is at its final thread to deliver the last blow.

When the ceremony is complete, the gods happy and the gargoyles exorcised, the gods lift themselves back up to the sky.

The quiet space they leave behind is called Peace.

It is now the responsibility of the ones left behind, the monks and John in this case, to fill the space with goodness, and to let it go.

To me, this sounded worth more than two nights. It was a steal.

Last Saturday, as has been frequent in the last year, the gargoyles descended. Another murder in Minneapolis, sanctioned by our federal government. The amount of fear, overwhelm, and sickness that filled me as I sat stock still watching a replay of Alex Pretti be shot again and again in my hotel room in New Orleans paralyzed me.

“What do we do? What do we do?” I kept asking my Someone. He sat across from me on the bed, glued to his own phone, shaking his head. He left for a while, but I hardly noticed until his return twenty minutes later. I was still scrolling. Our roommate, Alice, came back and I continued to scroll. My instinct was to curl up like a wounded animal and let the gargoyles take me. But we were attending a folk conference, for chrissake. I was an elevator away from empathy, and we set out to find it.

In the hotel lobby, I dodged from the front desk to the bar, looking for a face– and there she was. Lisa, one bite left on her plate. I walked toward her and into her arms and let myself be overcome with the weight of it. She, in turn, stood and waited with me and my Someone to hear the unravel that brought us to her. We didn’t really have words, so she told us about her exorcism that morning– how she intentionally went inward to work out the ways that her history and her family story had held her back, and how they don’t hold her back as much anymore since she began to walk toward it.

“This is the work,” she said, “that I believe we can do, and it will ripple out again.” She was right. To make this strange place of our lives a home is a way forward.

But then, as she finished, a trumpet started, then a trombone. A big brassy, cacophony began by the concierge desk and we were startled and excited by the sound. It turned into a song. Then voices began.

Oh when the saints go marching in–
Oh when the saints go marching in–

They marched around the lobby, growing louder and with more number, casting out all other sounds. Up the escalator and I could still hear them. They kept singing, holding that sonic space for a long time. Long after is polite for a public sing-along. And I realized they were keeping the space– they were holding the good gods here until the gargoyles fled. The harmonies split further, wedging into the little microcosmic pieces of my split up heart, and I let them hold space there.

When they finally ended, I felt the Silence– I felt peace. It was time to fill the space with goodness. We said goodbye to Lisa, and stopped to talk to Katie– a Minneapolis native. We consoled and cried and heartened. Then, we retreated to our room and wrote a song.

I’m not naive enough to believe a song will change anything. I’m not stupid enough to believe that this will be the only cleanse needed. These gargoyles, with their covered faces and unlimited budget and ammunition and self loathing, are fast and with unrestrained resources. But I have to believe that every incense lit, every vote, every word of dissent, every warm meal shared, every life now on the line, every banging trash can drum will do its part in the process until the oppressive cloud above us is one day scattered.

And so, I will write songs to lure the good gods in and keep them here. And I will try to hold them here as long as I can, til there is only space left for Peace.

And On Day 9, She Rested.

Day 2

I woke up here, on this island. I have no history, no identity, just a sense of belonging here only and always, and four incisions bruising on my abdomen. I hear everyone telling me to take it easy, to rest, to not worry. But I don’t worry. There’s no where to go here. The moon was full last night, and made the snowscape bright and reflective like glass. I awoke every three hours to alarms, telling me to take another pain pill. Tylenol, then ibuprofen, then Tylenol. They are the waves on the shoreline, and I am listening to them come in before sleep. At the 3AM, I willed myself to stay awake longer. The moonlight was too bright to close my eyes on, and it was too strange to see the night so bright that real, firm shadows formed on the ground. I spend the following day watching the same shadows from the sun. It was 1 degree in the morning, so cold that the hinges on the inside of the front door were frosted. My mother called. I don’t know how she found me here, or how I knew she was my mother. She said she made gingersnaps, and yesterday pizzelles. “It’s not Christmas til the pizzelles are made,” she said, and I wondered what was Christmas and neither judged nor resonated, only accepted that somewhere off this island, there was Christmas, but it didn’t effect me. Here was only wind that smacked snow to the side of every tree, slathered like white mud, making every tree a birch. I can’t imagine a prettier island, to exist in the center of a wood of cold birches. The winter day is closing its dense, blue eyelid. Here comes sleep, then alarm, sleep, alarm, and I hope for the moon to break up the night.

I love it here. But I get the nagging sense that I will have to leave someday, and it grieves me.

Day 3

There are prints that lead beneath the house in the snow– they look too large to be a squirrel but it’s too hopeful that they belong to a rabbit. I’m pleased to know that there is other life on the island, even if I am still too slow to catch it. I watch icicles like television, the prisms casting color before they frost over like teeth, dripping with hungry thoughts of spring.

Spring is a new idea on the island. I’m grateful it does not come here. I can’t imagine the chaos of vines and leaves whipping themselves around, mussing up the simplicity of a white blanket and footprints and the skeletal tan beech leaves I could count.

Day 4

It’s my fourth day on this island and the strangeness has worn off to normalcy. In fact, it is only strange that I ever believed in a world beyond the snowy sea. Complicated schedules and maps and to do lists have distilled down to baseless things. The only reigning importance is this: nourishment, bowel movements, deep breathing, sleep, and an occasional exploration of the perimeter. I am bodily reduced to these touchstones as before my mind was strengthened to perform complexities which on this island, I cannot fathom. Text messages come in like foreign postcards in the claws of gulls, indecipherable to this small world I inhabit. One ship has perched on shore, but brought no new news, only supplies to further my wait here. I will not starve. I will wait til the waters dry up and the boundaries soften and what happened here will little matter except that I knew only this for a time, and this was my home, and I was content to survive without curiosity and with contentment. The bright white out my window will sear like a memory blanket behind my eyes as I fall asleep and wish for the deep rest I have found here alone.

Day 5

And now time has snapped back into place. The island was an illusion. These things exist, in no particular order of importance and with equal certainty–

Monday
my body
my neighbor’s house
Europe
schools
seasons
music

Also, I have become aware of
schedules.
lists.
tasks.
Monday (again).

The realization is as shocking as it is normal, and I already mourn for day 1, 2, 3, 4 of a floating poet of no consequence who nearly lived a life into oblivion.

The biggest, most prominent awarenesses may be:
– a ticking clock

which leads to:
– irritations
– reality
– change
-clarity
-mournfulness
-regret
-longing

Oh, and look at that. Dashes. I have structured my lists, conditioned from the Before Time. I am not gently unraveling but forcibly conforming. Heart rate, higher. Motivation, momentous. Productivity, impossibly expected.

The island was not an illusion. And I was trying to fight to leave it too soon. My body not ready, my mind pushing forward. All of this time can’t be wasted. I began to panic. I pushed harder, walked longer, wore myself to pain, balled up my will and tried again. I exhausted myself on Day 6, walking outside in -12 degrees for over a mile, collapsing the rest of the day. That night, I told my Someone I had to write a book. I scanned the internet (it existed suddenly on the island), and realized much was expected of me. I should rest so that I could write a song. I should rest so I could write a book. I should rest so I could do more more more more more more more more more more more. I should rest, because rest means I can be better, bigger. There will be something to come of this rest. And if there isn’t, well, perhaps I did not take my rest seriously enough. I began making ridiculous goals. If I couldn’t sit upright to be productive in making books– hard as I’d tried– I would instead read books. An impossible number. I would finish at least one a day. I would consume books to prove that I am filling my well for future creativity. People would look at my online ledger and wonder how– HOW?– could anyone read this many books in such a short amount of time? Then, I made possible but fraught goals. I would do yoga every day. I would practice piano every day til my abdomen hurt. I would complete one mundane task a day. Suddenly my days of rest were so regimented, so riddled with expectation, I wished for the days before I rested so I could rest again.

And that’s when the spiraling began. Because I couldn’t– I physically couldn’t, not even to account for my mental capacity– hold up the weight of these expectations. I’m not even allowed to lift 5 pounds, let alone the hundreds of pounds of self imposed standards. I fell flat. It snowed that day, usually one of my favorite days. But as it piled up outside, I felt the weight pressing down on me. I became bitter, remembering when a snow day meant rest, and now a snow day means fighting the rest. I gave up, at last, and put myself to bed. A two hour nap. When I woke up, I made hot chocolate– with help lifting the maple syrup. I began a puzzle. I justified it as a snow day, but I worried that it would be the same tomorrow, the next day. And I still hadn’t written that novel that was supposed to come from all of this rest. I wished for exhaustion and got it, sleep without rest.

The next day was the same. I now lived on the shoreline of the island, unsure how to leave, unsure how to rest. I would leave. I would leave tomorrow.

I woke up angry, annoyed. I shoved myself into the small boat and pushed myself from the island I loved. Not because I wanted to leave, but because I felt like I had to. I didn’t deserve this place. I’d already overstayed. It was Day 8, for godssake. I couldn’t check out forever. Once out at sea, the waves grew more harsh. My body couldn’t handle it. My thoughts became the thrashing waves, a ship of haze– unrelenting, nonsensical, and from every direction. I became disoriented. I became a ball of defiant energy, a little work force of resistance, of fear, of small brutal efforts. And then I became a mouse at the bottom of a boat, running back and forth.

And then, another boat appeared. Lindsey. She tethered her boat to mine, lobbing over a bag of roasted eggplant tomato soup and fresh squeezed orange juice and a small gift wrapped prettily in orange paper. Then she sat with me in the middle of the sea while I tried to pretend my tears were just the water sloshing around. She’d been here before, in this exact part of the sea. It was a little and a long way to go, she said. She had a map, and showed it to me. I couldn’t make sense of it, but I love to see maps, and it made me feel calm. She stayed very still while I sometimes raged and punched at the water. When she left, I was still drifting, but toward somewhere. I let myself be pushed around as I did the gentlest yoga in the middle of my boat. I let myself think–

Who am I if I am not helping? Contributing? Performing?

I let myself think–

What happens to me when I am reduced to I AM, I AM, I AM.

I let myself think–

People are allowed to be not useful, but I am not allowed to be not useful.

I let my ideologies be pushed around. I thought how I believed somewhere that I would heal better than anyone else. I thought how I was in competition, to be better at getting better faster than anyone else. I thought of the merit of my own body, and then the merit of having a body unable to serve. I remembered a foreign postcard text my friend Dani sent me on Day 2, when she said, “I hate when reality screws up my positive thinking plans. And all that stuff that happens to other people certainly won’t happen to ME. Yep, reality bites.”

And then I thought, I am not special to be here in this floating sea alone and capable. But I am special to be in this floating sea where other people have been floating before and know the place that I am floating.

I thought– what is the lesson?

I thought– this is the lesson.

I thought– because there is no lesson. At last.

Day 9

This morning, I awoke in the world I left before surgery. I thought, “I would like to go to a bookstore soon.” And it seemed strange that I would want to go, but also that I remembered what a bookstore is. How decadently normal. My Someone has set up two bird feeders on a shepherd’s hook in front of my bedroom window, and when he delivered coffee to me in bed, he opened the curtains and I was shocked and amazed to see it. All day I’ve stayed in this room, even though I don’t need to stay in this one space. I’m well enough that I could leave. But I am choosing to stay because so far I have seen chickadee, titmouse, nuthatch, bluejay, and a hairy woodpecker, and I can’t stand to miss a minute. I read a poem this morning that said True creation is always purposeless, without ulterior motive.* It reminded me of an island I used to live on. I read more of the poem and, for the first time in months, I felt the poem touch my heart. True rest is also always purposeless. They have always been attached, twinned, but necessarily separated. Rest and creation cannot see one another, or the spell is broken, and they both disappear. I do not rest to create, or I do not create. I do not create so I may rest, or I will never rest. Today I remember my island, and I rest.

And here, by accident, create.

*”Fugue,” by Hayan Charara from These Trees, Those Leave, This Flower, That Fruit

Short Cuts & Snake Bites

Susan in Greeley, CO spent her career as a physical therapist. She told me most often, people are injured simply because they are not paying attention. They have decided to take a short cut, or feel hurried, or take their mind from the thing they are doing in order to save time or mental effort and– crack, bam or twist— that’s when it happens. It is in these moments that their mind goes one way and their body goes another.

The mindfulness movement isn’t new– it’s ancient. But it’s been in a Renaissance of sorts, with words like “intentional” and “being present” seeping into the vernacular. My Someone’s grandma, whose memorial my Someone is attending this weekend, called it “Keeping body and soul together.” She was a devout Nazarene, and would likely be horrified to hear that phrasing in reference to my yogic practice. So I kept my delight of our shared sacred belief to myself, feeling strangely connected when I’d hear her ask her grandson at the end of their phone calls, “Well, are you keeping body and soul together?” Like trying to keep the vinyl floor glued down, or Wendy stitching up Peter Pan’s Shadow to himself.

The irritation with paying attention is that it takes time. There isn’t a short cut to not taking short cuts. It is an agonizing, unrelenting process that quite literally comes one step at a time. And if you aren’t paying attention– well, then you’ve already lost it.

Photo by Scott Tyler

I was thinking of Susan when we walked the low sloping hills along our campsite in the Badlands last month. We were going to see these natural phenomena with our friends John & Becky, who’d flown all the way out from New Hampshire to spend a week with us on tour in South Dakota. While they’d stayed in a hotel, we’d slept in the park under a drape of stars the night before, listening to the coyotes yip close by. John & Becky would be meeting us in the morning for breakfast, before it got too hot to bear, and we hopped-to to get the dogs a walk before their arrival. We’d been walking for more than 20 minutes or so when it felt like time to turn back. I didn’t want to be late. My Someone and I looked back over the path along the ridgeline, realizing we’d gone further than we thought. Then we took a look down the slope of the hill, tall grasses and an occasional cactus that led down to a faster road back. Susan’s words began to press on me, but I pushed through them in favor of the press of time that is almost always pushing on my skull.

Then a new feeling passed over me– something was wrong.

“Snake awake!” I yelled, a mantra we’d been shouting since we saw a sign that read those words back in Colorado.

“Snake awake!” my Someone yelled back, laughing. But I wasn’t laughing– I knew.

At that moment, ten feet into the uncharted grass, my littlest dog stepped on a snake. I pulled her back, hard, and ran us back to the dirt path. I checked her over, frustrated. The press of time suddenly didn’t matter. I saw nothing– no mark, no reaction. We took the long way back. When we arrived at the bottom, our friends Michael & Erin were there waiting– we were in our last week of tour together. I recounted our walk, the snake, and just as I said “And I guess she didn’t get bit after all–” my Someone pointed to her foot.

There they were, two bright red dots on the foot she’d stepped with, perfectly sized to the small snake I’d seen. Now, I pushed the rush of my head down and began dialing John & Becky. My Someone packed the truck and called the local vet.

“Can you go with John & Becky to see the Bandlands today?” I asked Michael and Erin. Of course, of course. And we were on our way. When we finally got to better service, just a mile up, I got hold of the Visitor’s Center, then another vet. They both had me describe the situation, the size of the snake, the color, my dog’s reaction. And both assured me– no, everything will be all right. Keep an eye on her, but there is almost assuredly nothing wrong. The dog is big, the snake was small, and the likelihood of it being a rattler– even a small one– is low. I hesitated, then took a moment to put body and soul together. I listened. And then, yes. They were right.

We returned to the campsite where all of our friends were waiting. We ate heaping bowls of oatmeal and slurped our coffee and everyone doted on my littlest dog, telling her how brave she is, watching her for any indication of poisoning. I felt my heart rate decrease. And my littlest dog got a first class ride in Michael & Erin’s van for the day to monitor her as we all went to see the Badlands.

No more short cuts were taken. It was a really stunning visit.

Photo by John Foster

When we returned from tour, my mind was brambled from the trip. My Someone’s grandma had passed away. One of my best friends had lost his dad. And also, my mother was coming to visit. My mother, who has not in my adult life come to visit me– just me. My mother, who I have been estranged from for several years. This atop the stress of travel, of hundreds of people and personalities and no time to take it slow. So, just as with last August, Rowe & Laurie helped us secure a canoe and some gear, and we headed to the Green River Reservoir in Vermont to watch the beavers swim and the loons nest and the water change color with the sunlight.

On the first morning, they took an early paddle out while my Someone and I stayed back. I began painting a little book I’d brought along beside our morning fire and coffee. When they returned, I made motion to get up when Rowe said–

“No, no need to go yet. You’re doing it. You’re doing the thing we come here for.”

“You mean wasting time?” I said.

“You’re not wasting time,” he said quickly, “you’re embracing it.”

As it turns out, there are no shortcuts to embracing time. You simply have to spend it as it comes. I thought of this as we paddled in the morning, ate our lunch by the water, swam. I thought of this as I lazed about starting a new book and reading it for consecutive hours, breaking for a small nap in between. I thought of this the next morning, when I woke first a little before five, and felt called to embrace time by touching the water. When I dipped in from the rocks, the fog was still on the water and cast in a pink glow from the sunrise. I soundlessly submerged myself to my neck, and as I waited, patiently asking myself to embrace time, a little creature’s head began moving toward me. I gasped, but he was undeterred. The young beaver swam, turned, and swam again, making circles around the spot I was treading water. Finally, he swam off and didn’t return. I took it as my cue to finally swim forward, out to the little island in the middle of the reservoir. When I got there, I stood up on the rock, and my little friend caught sight of me in my full height from the shore. He slapped his tail in warning– I was not what he’d expected.

I waited a little longer, making sure I wouldn’t be interrupting his morning work, and when I didn’t see him, I tread back in to swim to shore. Within three strokes he appeared again, and swam alongside me, just a couple of feet away. We swam like this til we arrived back to shore. I stayed in the deep for a while, watching him chew industriously for several minutes until I was sure my presence would bother him. When I returned to the rock, he pushed from shore again and swam toward me. It was the closest we’d been in our time together. I saw his little eyes glistening and the texture of his fur, his nose moving with the intake of breath. And then, he was gone. When I left the water, I did not feel as though I had embraced time. I felt that time had embraced me. I swam with a beaver for 45 minutes. It was at least my best guess as I saw my friends emerge from their tents around 6.

I was grateful to see Laurie first. I couldn’t spend another minute keeping this little piece of magic to myself. Or rather, I could only spend another minute, the next minute, one at a time. I didn’t take any shortcuts. I told her every detail.

The visit with my mother went well. More than well. By the end of the weekend, it was as if we’d recovered something. In some way, we had. But it wasn’t time. I kept reminding myself after I dropped her off at the airport that the time spent apart wasn’t wasted. In order to keep body and soul together, we had to remain apart. Relationships are the body of two people. For these years, I became mindful of this body I share with my mother– how it works, how it doesn’t. And I remained mindful of it when we were physically together again. For the first time, I felt like myself around her. And I kept my mind on this shared body– I listened harder, I noticed more, I welcomed her like I’d learned to welcome myself in this time we spent apart.

There were no missteps– no emotional twisted ankles or metaphorical snake bites. Because we had not taken any short cuts to get here. We endured the painful, long road of healing. I could not have fast forward through the anger, the grief, the despair in the same way that she could not race through the regret, the ache, the distance. We took our agonizing time. And while we may not be running any races now, we are at least walking the same path again. Slowly. Keeping body and soul together.

It’s Magic.

I have been obliterated by magic.

I mentioned with frequency this year that I declared this a Year of Healing. The truth of that statement is that I saw an owl– the first bird of the year– on January 1st. My Someone and I had just departed a year of break downs, of death, of goodbyes. Any omen, even a notoriously dark one, presented itself as an opportunity for things to be different. We spotted its wide white face, its massive body, it’s looming presence on a low branch on the rail trail that connects from our home. It took our damn breath away.

“It’s the Year of the Owl,” I said, as if that were something we regularly declared.

“It’s the Year of the Owl,” my Someone repeated back to me. And so, it was so.

“That means magic,” I said.

“Hmm,” my Someone responded. And then he agreed. “Okay. Magic.”

Magic quickly turned to healing. I’ve read enough Harry Potter and fantasy and sci-fi to understand it. When one discovers magic, they uncover themselves. In order to arrive at the magic, they must first face the trauma that initially forced the magic out of them– familial drama, an ex-lover, a hidden memory from a fall into a portal. Translated, they must heal. Or else they become Voldemort. It’s very direct.

In order to heal, one must become vulnerable. This is tricky business, as it leaves you open to new experiences, to overwhelming feelings, and to the possibility that you’ll learn something you wish you hadn’t. This is the art of noticing– noticing my breath becoming shallower. Noticing how often I feel like crying. Noticing the sound of owls more often than I knew owls were around. It’s not all bad. There is also the noticing of the sunlight on my dog’s head, of the first fall leaf, or the way a stranger reaches for their friend and touches them lightly on the cheek before carrying on like it wasn’t the most important moment in history. These are the spells. They are mesmerizing and everything becomes important. Which causes its own sort of madness– the strange isolation of wondering if you are the only one that can see the rapid fire beauty unraveling every second we are on this gently spinning Earth.

I tried to explain this to people throughout the year. Some nodded enthusiastically. Some smiled in the you-adorable-pet kind of way. Most instinctively recalled a time, often in their teens or twenties, when they did something bold– traveled overseas, quit their job, took a road trip, wandered the Appalachian Trail, fell in love. They get a glimmer in their eye that is something like nostalgia, but more like a vase on the top shelf that they can almost reach. And then they settle back into the present moment with a bit of dust on their shoulders. The magic is suddenly possible. Until they wipe it away and put on clean clothes. Until they forget.

The place we go when we brush with magic is not time travel. It is not youth. The place we remember is the present. It is the memory of time not touching time– future and past– but time touching now, of dipping our hand in the pool of warm concrete under feet, of a sonic wave hitting our ear of a taxi cab honking its horn, of the green smell of the birch bark as we peeled it back from the tree.

We come across this magic naturally in our youth. We’re all unwieldy zaps of light and masses of shifting planes into other worlds. What I don’t think we realize– what I didn’t realize– is that the magic doesn’t go away. It doesn’t become harder to detect. It is in fact possible that it becomes more accessible. But now we are growing up, we have the tools necessary to hone it. We can experience and tap into the magic without accidentally zapping our roommate in the butt with it. We have the emotional ability to hold it in our hands and wonder.

I anticipated my pursuit of Magic this year to land me somewhere different by now. I expected to not have to work for it after 10 months. I expected that I would wake up in a whirlwind of presence and certainty, of crows landing on my shoulders and flowers blooming at my feet as I walked. Instead, I am mostly a blubbering mess when I listen to Rich tell a room full of friends at his 80th birthday party last weekend that, “I am so glad to have gotten to know you all of these years.” Instead, I am squee-ing at the sight of a mouse in my kitchen, delighted to have a new friend, trying to lure it into a cup with peanut butter so I can rehome it. Instead, I am awash with grief and happiness, often in the same moment. Instead, I woke up last night in a panic. I am prone to these– a frequent outburst of anxiety in the early morning hours wherein nothing I was worried about before is abruptly the most pressing and potentially lethal possibility. I took stock of my surroundings. I am home. I am safe. It is still dark. I am scared. I am scared. I am scared.

In response, the Owl hooted outside my window. I listened. She called a few more times, and then it was quiet.

The magic is not that there was an Owl. The magic is that I was able to quiet my fear enough to hear her.

The magic is in the watching.

So maybe it’s working.