Compline

[amidthestars]

This morning, I had an appointment with my very lovely therapist. We talked about writing. Specifically, we talked about pursuing writing in a more intentional way. We began with small things (like, actually write actual words in your actual life, preferably on a regular basis) and went as far as to consider the possibility of applying to creative writing programs, and maybe combining those studies with some sort of theological education, very likely in the Anglican tradition and very likely somewhere that is Not Here. The conversation surprised me. I didn't expect to talk about this, and I didn't expect to walk out of her office with thoughts of returning to grad school in my head. But here we are, googling MFA programs.

I've been living very quietly. I think that's reasonable for now - and why not forever? The last 3 years have been intense, and strange, and beautiful, and impossible, and I have emerged from it all a fairly substantial mess. I've learned a lot, certainly, and I'm continuing to learn a lot, and I know I'm making a lot of good, healthy choices and finding some surprising bits of happiness and delight but holy crap do I have shit to sort out. The idea of any sort of upheaval seems...concerning. And it's not like she's suggesting I do this tomorrow. Maybe next year, maybe the year after. But do I want it? I thought I didn't, but... maybe I do.

I told her I felt guilty about being so wayward. I did the academia thing once before and wrote a really cool thesis and then walked away so fast I can't even remember the name of it now. Then there were 3 years of monasticism. She said, "I don't think you're wayward at all. I think you're becoming yourself." Those are words I would say to any other person in my predicament, and I would do so believing them sincerely. But my absurd heart leapt wildly into discovery and broke into approximately 8 zillion pieces. After that, the thought of winding up for another leap - however far into the distance it may be - seems foolish. There is a part of me that thinks, maybe you should just give up.

I don't want that to be who I am. I don't want to be someone who gives up, or who thinks giving up is a viable option. I don't want to live a life that is...resigned. But I am wary of the belief that I can (or even ought to) take another big risk. If it were anyone else, I'd be the most wholehearted cheering section as they took their running start. I know that. But.

After the appointment, I had a bit of time to kill. It so happened that my boss and I had a meeting at a design firm near my therapist's office, and I had about an hour between when my appointment ended and my meeting began. Both offices are in a weird, mostly industrial area, where there aren't any good spots to wait. But, in the same neighbourhood is the only church supply store in the city, vaguely warehouse-y, about 50% bookstore, 25% liturgical supplies, and 25% rosaries and statues of angels.

I stuck to the books, and even there, I stuck mostly to the bibles. The rest made me feel like I was having a heart attack. I picked up all the translations I used to know, and love, and I opened them, and remembered how it felt to have them spread out on my desk in piles, comparing words, chasing nuances, starving for...everything. Answers, direction, conversation, a friend. I almost, almost bought a massive, one-volume Greek/Hebrew Interlinear Bible, because there is a past version of me who would open that thing and then not come up for air again for days, and I want her to still be alive somewhere.

Instead, I walked out with a tiny Grail Psalter, identical to the one I used to keep under my choir stall. The one from which I memorized the psalms that I used to repeat, silently, while I worked or walked. The one I used to whisper myself to sleep. The one I used to pray, from beginning to end, every time a sister died. I've read, wept, thought, sung my way through its pages so many times. It feels so much like home that I can't even open it. It's still sitting in my backpack. If I take it out I will want to fold myself into its pages, to bury myself inside them, let them consume me. I'm afraid it will not be a comfort. It used to be, but I used to be different.

Comments

[underused]

When I was little I remember my mom taking me to a church supply store (I have no idea why). I remember it was called The Mustard Seed. As a kid (and I'm guessing as a non-religious adult) it felt a lot like the shops in Chinatown; filled with ordinary things that felt vaguely unrecognisable, like being in an alternate dimension.

"I don't want to be someone who gives up, or who thinks giving up is a viable option." You know, giving up isn't in itself some great failure. You don't have to stick with something until it kills you.Choosing to leap when that's not something you can do is tantamount to self-sabotage; how is that better than letting yourself give (something) up? There was a great quote from Michelle... Williams, maybe? She said "thinking about quitting is just keeping going in disguise." It's a way of telling yourself there are options so you don't freak out.

And here's another of my favourite quotes for your consideration:

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." (Anatole France)

[amidthestars]

That quote is lovely. It reminds me of something somebody else sent me recently, which was also lovely, and helpful:

“When we lose people, friendships, health, or we’re dispossessed from a place we loved, we may think it’s a temporary process of mourning that we are in. But maybe loss shows us some basic truth about who we are: we are tied to others and to place. Those bonds form us. It’s not like there is an “I” that exists over here and a “you” over there somewhere. When I lose you, I lose me too. Grief challenges the very notion that we are separate selves. We do not always succeed at being whole. The faces of others, the touch and smell of them, our memories of places we have lived and loved - all of this undoes us. It should. Falling down is necessary for waking up to our shared humanity.“ (Michael Stone)

I feel like there's a difference between giving up on particular things, and giving up on... life, I guess. And maybe (probably) that's an overly dramatic thing to think, or say. Something I think about a lot is the tension between, I guess.. settling?... and just admitting limitations, or making a choice. Sometimes, after quite a lot of years of fairly intense searching (and a heck of a lot of idealism), I feel the pressure to just, like, stop that already, and "be serious" or "grow up" or whatever. To just be okay with my job and my quiet little routine, rather than reaching for something else, or even being open to dreaming about it. And I don't think there's anything wrong with what I'm doing now, and I definitely feel like it's the right place for me to be at this moment: somewhere quiet, simple, safe. And I don't think there would necessarily be anything wrong with wanting that for a long time, maybe forever. But I worry about my reasons for wanting that, or my reasons for thinking other things aren't possible.

Does that kind of make sense?

[underused]

Of COURSE it makes sense.

Where I feel like we all need to take more time is in the assignation of good or bad, because that has to be subjective. Not making a choice is still a choice--is that good or bad? Are we required to reach--to want greatness? Or is it as valid to stop reaching? If we choose not to choose, is our passivity a failure? Is it that we're not okay with what's in front of us, or is it that we're conditioned to think we shouldn't be?

This is not to say we shouldn't reach or dream if it's in our nature. All I'm saying is our cultural narrative puts a lot of pressure on us to want things--so much so that we assign really shitty words (like "settling") to what might otherwise be seen as contentment. (Not to mention, it's the unsung willingness of the majority to "settle" that keeps us all alive.)

Haha, I'm seriously about five minutes away from writing a Manifesto of Mediocrity.

In any case, everything you're saying is right and thoughtful and I'd never accuse you of being anything else. I'm just suggesting sometimes the tensions we feel are more external than we realise.

I want to respond to your beautiful quote with another. It's Donne's For Whom the Bell Tolls passage which I thought about a lot when dad died. I feel like people always skip the best parts.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." Jeez louise that line rips my heart out.

[amidthestars]

Yeah. That makes sense, too. I'm honestly not sure I've ever thought about it that way before.

(This is going to be pretty incoherent, but here it goes:)

Something that troubles me is that in these conversations, there is often an implication, or even sometimes an explicit assessment, that I'm not living up to my potential (usually put in much kinder terms, but the meaning is the same). What I often hear from others is that, on some level I'm supposed to be "great", or destined to be great, or created by God to be great or whatever, and those are wonderful, encouraging things to hear (and that's how they're meant, as encouragement), but...sometimes, depending on the conversation, it also seems to suggest that I'm failing something that I a) owe to... the world? humanity? the LORD? and also b) would be totally achievable if only I just...tried hard enough, or made better choices, or (depending on who I'm talking to) was better at listening to God.

And these statements are usually made out of sincere kindness, often by people who I respect and/or who have some sort of authority in my life (like my therapist), and usually they comes in the form of an expression of confidence in me, and so on one level it's a wonderful thing to receive. But underneath that, I turn the encouragement into pressure or expectation (which is even shittier when it becomes divine pressure). At moments, it makes me really angry.

So it's helpful to step back far enough to ask where these ideas come from, and how we've defined "greatness" or success or achievement or enough, and why we value them the way that we do.

Also, the Donne quote made me tear up.

(I'm sorry if this was impossible to follow. I've been thinking about this a lot, but have never really tried to articulate it.)

[underused]

It may surprise you how NOT impossible to follow this was. The Tyranny of Potential has been my personal demon since my teens.

Potential is everything; it is also nothing. If I display a great natural gift for field hockey, but I hate sports, should I be obliged to dedicated my life to field hockey and be miserable? Whatever my potential is, whatever my talents are, they are *mine,* and whatever I choose to do with them continues to be a measure of my free will. And our personal potential lies in many different paths. It's not some fated destiny. Thinking otherwise is like thinking everyone on earth has some One True Love--it's a pleasing construction that often encourages us to do some very stupid things.

Nothing makes me crazier than to hear someone is "throwing away their potential." It's straight up rude--and nonsense. Potential is an accident of birth, not an obligation. It's a nice thing to be told you're good at something; indeed, it's a nice thing to *be* good at something, but whether we choose to make that something the centrepiece of our life's work should be up to us without fear we're disappointing someone else's idea of what we're capable.

There was a doc that came out ages ago, "Dogtown and Z Boys," about the history of skateboarding. In it, they follow these young kids, the most naturally gifted of whom grew up to have a troubled adulthood. The subjects of the film spent half of it wailing about what a "waste" his life was and I was seething. All I could think was "how dare you?" His life is HIS, not yours, and to suggest any life is a "waste" is presumes a lot of knowledge we don't have. It's either arrogant or illogical: if you believe in a benevolent universe and a master plan it's not for you to determine what's wasted and what's not; if you believe in chaos, the human definition of success is an abstraction at best.

haha rant over. ☺

(ps: the Donne quote always makes me weepy, too)