what matters is that you choose what to carry

How we learn to live with what we cannot yet lay down.

Hello dear reader,

How are you this week? What have you swallowed?

Cuckoo (1915–26) by Allen W. Seaby

“— Easy now! No need for unnecessary panic—we’ll sort it out quietly, on our own. Usually, facts are arranged in time, strung along its course like beads on a thread. This has its importance—for both narration and continuity.

— All right, all right… but what about events that have no place of their own in time? Events that came too late, when all of time had already been distributed, allotted… is time really too narrow to contain all events?

— There exist such side branches of time—somewhat illegal, to be sure, and rather problematic—but when we’re dealing with events that cannot be classified, one cannot be overly choosy.”

— Bruno Schulz, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

I came here to lay before you words neat and pleasant and agreeable but instead, I burst open. The time’s string came loose, and the beads roll all over my desk and keyboard now. It is a mess. And it is long overdue.

All these years, I have been trying to tidy up and in the sweeping, I accidentally killed what was just learning to live.

I tried to make clean, soften the sharp edges. I tried to reassure that yes, no need to worry, I have been bent a thousand times but I shall rise a thousand and one. I had to be strong as the pain made itself at home within my being like mice do inside the wall before winter. I hear them running above my head at night. They won’t let me sleep.

There are days when I feel that all I have is pain. I lie on the side, wrapped tight in the blanket and weep as the beads roll all around the floor, making noise. I say, I surrender this pain, please take it, it is all I’ve got today, can it be enough? I repeat this question like a child, eyes shut, whispering a spell in darkness to make the monsters go away, can it be enough? can it be enough?

Please, may it be enough, that’s all I’ve got today.

There is shame and fear in still tending to these beads, still seeing them roll around, when they should long be strung on a neat thread and stored away in the attic. I should have healed already. I should get my string together. I should make it prettier and neater, much, much neater. If anyone finds out how much sorrow inhabits me, how deep and how messy, there will be no hiding anymore; it will swallow me—the fear says. Still, I long for a witness to my sorrow but I, myself, turn my gaze away, hoping that if I don’t look too closely—only close enough to see the overall shape—it will go. But total freedom does not come from half measures.

I tried to offer forgiveness and care and love as a remedy. But in doing so, I denied the pain its feral nature. I tried taming it.

But how can you tame a shapeless wild beast? It escapes every grasp, every spell. It only lets itself be felt in total surrender. Little child, you must open your eyes to face it, take a good look into its panting mouth wide open.

It is we who are being tamed, not the other way around. The ego, the illusions. I keep returning to the edge of this wide abyss, even though I already thought I had travelled far and surely enough that I no longer risk being swallowed by it. As I stand there once again today, I only find it is deeper and hungrier than I’ve seen before, and it is calling my name.

I had given myself to the darkness many times. But regardless of how much I learn to befriend it, it is terrifying still. If I get a glimpse of sunshine, I don’t want to return to lightlessness.

I write here often about pain and grief and sorrow and I say let us not be afraid of them for they are invitations. But there are days I would rather not receive any of these invitations at all. And so it takes humility and trust to descend into the cellars of my being, and grope for the matches and a candle with which to illuminate the darkness. There, I find that which occurred when “all of time had already been distributed, allotted”. At last, I bear witness.

It is a slow turning over the beads, like in prayer, an agreement with life to keep living it even when we feel we no longer can. In trying to hold it all together, I forgot to hold myself. Today, I press my hands to my chest, there, there, little heart. Today, all I have to offer is pain. Can it be enough?

A gift and a burden both weigh the same.

I was told to find myself

but they did not say
I can only do so
by letting it fray.

I move with clarity
and then I forget. 

I stutter and stumble
in conversation with life
when I try to tell a story—live it 
right,           instead of leaving it,
so it be as it might. 

I step into a full sentence,
make it empty, bright—

like a flower at dawn, 
its mouth opening wide 
to swallow the day,
and you with it.

This is how to live a life: 
a gift, a burden—
both weigh the same.

What matters is how you choose to carry them.

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The slow Autumn days 🍁

Before you go:

A question to aid you in this week’s reflection:

Look down at your little hands. What do they carry?