Do you ever feel like you’re hanging on the hairy edge of madness by one spun fiber? Do you open your eyes at 3 am, belly full of responsibly raised animals, organic veggies, Chilean wine and appropriately dark chocolate, and just feel bad, sad, pained and scared?
Who do you think you are, to feel this malaise, this dull unhappiness in the midst of plenty? You, who have never known war, hunger, earthquaking tragedy, how do you justify your anxieties and agitations? (Asking myself.)
We all struggle, every one of us, with much of it - the turmoil of the mind, the insult of the modern world, the indelicacies of aging. We lurch and writhe through the various prescribed stages - childhood, school, adolescence, work, family, illness, aging, and death. We seek paths, or tunnels, through it, conjure balms and spells to heal and help. We’re clever and adaptable, most of us, and we build the scaffolding of relative sanity into our messy lives.
Some days, however, it seems that the universe just wants to pick a fight. In your bed, in the middle of the long night, it needles you with pain, doubt, worry, and want. It reminds you of your failures and asks why you haven’t fixed everyone else’s wagon yet. It pokes at your most sensitive spots, seeking a reaction.
And, because you can’t fight with the universe - it’s absurd! - you poke someone near you. You pick your own fight, a fresh engagement, to vent the steam of the unseen thing. It could be about anything. Big things like love and money, or just the wet towel left on the bed. Someone chewing, or that tone (you know the one). No matter, the harangue begins and the universe watches.
It watches your ugly handling of its challenge, with your small mind and your tiny clenched fists. Watches you stomp and stew and miss the grand point, the big picture, distracted as you are by the circus of your own creation.
I have wished for the grace to roll with these punches, to stand straight and speak clearly in spite of the vague, humming confusion. I admire stoicism, sturdy silence, and no-nonsense practicality, though none of that describes me. It’s a game that ties me up in knots, but I keep swinging away.
And so, I will scrub the greasy stove, throw food on a fire. I will feed people who are also wrestling themselves today. Put flowers in the bathroom and take a stupid little walk, knowing that the bottom of the hill will feel like crisis but I’ll make it to the top anyway. There’s a view on the other side that just may save me.
Maybe there are no flowers without fear, no fire without pain. Maybe there’s no view without 3 a.m. and crisis. Maybe the flea market collection of trinkets and crap that the universe dumps in your lap every day will hold a gem or two.
I am grateful, even though.
Happy Passover and Easter weekend!
Lisa
Things to share:
This essay makes me want to find a pool and, perhaps more importantly, the camaraderie of a locker room.
Deborah Levy is a mood and a goal. She looks disappointed in me.
I adore this letter from
, written by Colette’s mother, along with Colette’s response: “Whenever I feel myself inferior to everything about me, threatened by my own mediocrity, frightened by the discovery that a muscle is losing its strength, a desire its power, or a pain the keen edge of its bite, I can still hold up my head and say to myself: ‘I am the daughter of the woman who wrote that letter …”I’m near the end of Anthony Doerr’s amazing Cloud Cuckoo Land and struck on this: “WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE IS BETTER THAN WHAT YOU SO DESPERATELY SEEK.” This novel is wild, rich, and revelatory. How did he do it?
Loved this - thank you
What a beautiful letter indeed, and what a wonderful response!