i am under-grounded

from May, 2020

(Tiny moments that get strung together to start giving off more and more light.)

Our lives happen in moments. I have to say it again. Our lives happen in moments. Fractions of moments. Our lives happen in glances, and shared exhales, in splinters of seconds when the sun hits the water just right and everything is gold. Our whole lives are a mesh of moments that, if we give them enough room, create a shape that suits us, that serves us, that grants us enough space to be who we were meant to be.

But we are trained to miss moments. We are training to miss moments. We are rushing from one thing to the next thing. We are whizzing by one another with important things to do. We are not important.

Here’s what I heard myself tell a client today. I said, “Don’t look for the people who have the answers you’re seeking. And definitely don’t look for the people who tell you they have the answers you are seeking. Look for the people who are asking the same questions you are asking. Those are your people.” This is not a revelation to the world. I’m sure countless people have said it before. But as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew they were true. And I knew they were the kind of true that need my attention.

It is not the answers we get, or never do, that make us who we are. It is always the questions. Questions create space and answers erase it. I promise you that is true.

In my work with couples, in being in a couple, I have noticed one true thing. When we already know our partner’s answers, when we already have the answers to what they will do or say, to how they will react, when we already know–that is a kind of violence we do to one another. And it’s tricky. Because the pull to know someone and to be known is so deep in us. But knowing someone and being known is different than already knowing the answer, already knowing and no longer listening.

My brain goes so fast–runaway train fast–that I often complete people’s sentences. And guess what? I am correct often enough that it almost seems like a superpower. But guess what else? It’s no superpower. It’s a kind of violence that says “ I have already stopped listening.” There have been a few moments in my life when I have been able to slow my brain down long enough just to be there. That’s what peace is. That is why I am here.

But I am training to rush past the moments. I am in the habit of being afraid that if I slow down I will feel pain. And I am so foolish, because of course I know–because I already know–I am in pain anyway. But what I get when I slow down is not just peace, it’s connection, deep connection. to other human beings.

Here are the questions I have–have always had: Why am I here? How do I love? How do I make a life? What have we done to one another? What have we done to the Earth? How do we do better? How do we do better?

We are training to miss our moments so that we can fit into lives that we never wanted anyway.

There’s a lot of talk these days about how we can’t go back to normal once this pandemic is over, or managed to the best of our ability. ”Normal.” Normal wasn’t working. Normal was never normal. The systems we put in place to scaffold our country are not only not working, they are also inhumane. They are racist, sexist and anti-human.

If I’m honest with myself, this is what is true. I can’t bear it anymore. Because in order to make a life in this system, we have to dehumanize ourselves. My humanity has taken a big hit.

When my kid told me she didn’t want to have kids then said “but I will, you know, to keep the family going” it brought me to my knees. How could she, at eight years old, already be dragging under the burden of such an irrelevant obligation? A voice in my head screamed, “that is not your legacy!” I stopped. My brain quieted and stopped, for once. I got down close to her and said, “Love, this is what you need to know. Having kids is an amazing, life-changing thing to do, but it is not your job. You only have to have kids if you want kids. And you know what I know about keeping the family going? You already have. You have already done enough. Just by being here, you have changed me. Just by being here, you have changed everyone you have ever met. We all have. The world will never go back to how it was before you were born–before any of us were born. You have already done enough.” I didn’t want her to carry this legacy forward, where suffering under a heavy burden of obligation is confused for love. I want her to be free to choose the life she wants. I want that for all of us.

Maybe I’ve been in California too long. I sound like a total hippie. But my questions are my questions. Even as an East Coast girl, these were my questions. And I am living inside them, like Rilke said. I can feel my brain slowing down. I want to be here.