Graduation note

Dear Claire, 

I could say to myself, "I should have had this ready to give to you a week ago, on your graduation day.” 

But I don't want to do that to myself. 

The truth is, this wasn't ready a week ago because I wasn't ready to write it. I hadn't found the space or the words yet. And that's okay. It's what is. I'm not going to put a layer of “shoulds” over this writing because then I'd never want to write it, or it would never want to be written. My creativity, I've learned, does not thrive under the weight of shame.

I could tell myself that what I've written here is not the sort of thing I should have written – it's not nostalgic enough, it's not reflective enough, it doesn’t say what it should say. It doesn’t say what a mother should say. 

But I don't want to do that to myself. 

The truth is, what I’ve written here is what was on my heart to share with you. What I wrote is what I wrote because I am who I am. And that’s okay. It’s what is. I'm not going to put a layer of “not enough” over this writing because I know that I can't grow and thrive under the weight of shame. Well, I can – I have – but I made a promise to myself that I won’t put that on myself anymore. It benefits no one. Not me, not you, not anyone who might read these words. 

When I sat down to write, finally, I thought I would write a list of all the things I love about you. 

Things like:

I love how much you love the things you love: Taylor Swift, Star Wars, LOTR, mythology, Greek plays l've never heard of, dance, writing, traditions, sitting outside, folklore, cosplay. 

I love how the characters in the stories you write have shaped you as you're shaping them.

I love how committed you are to the paths you've chosen. 

I love your sense of humor. 

I love how well you know yourself. And how much more you will know about yourself as your life unfolds. 

But I realized that a list like that would never feel like fully “it” to me. It would always feel incomplete because what I love about you is actually infinite and mostly outside the limits of language. 

And I wanted to give you something more than a partial list. 

So this is what I wrote:

When you were born, I was anxious and protective. I didn't know what I was doing, but day to day I did whatever felt like the right thing to do to keep you safe and happy. I had a sense that there was a right way to do things, but I was never sure if I was doing it right. I did what felt right, but I was also surrounded on all sides by “shoulds”.

“Shoulds” shook me. Sometimes they were subtle. Sometimes they were significant. But it took me a long time to recognize that “shoulds” are red flags. “Shoulds” are cause to pause. To ask myself: why do I feel like I should do this? What’s under it, behind it, driving it? Do I want to do it this way? Why? Why not? 

I was about to write: I should have started questioning “shoulds” sooner. 

That made me laugh out loud. 

This is exactly what I'm writing about. 

Why do I think I should have started questioning “shoulds” sooner? Because then I could have showed you sooner. I could have shared what I knew. I could have done better. I could have been better. 

But I’m not going “should” myself, even in this writing. 

I’m going to be tender with myself. I’m going to remind myself that it’s understandable that I didn’t know the importance of questioning “shoulds”. I was growing and learning, too. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and that’s okay. It’s what was. But I see it now, and I can share it if I want. So I ask myself: “Do I want to share this now?” And my answer is: “Yes. I do. I really do.” 

I want to share this with you now. Something I didn't realize when I was your age. Something I hadn't learned when you were born. Something I couldn’t see until very recently. Something I’m still exploring and learning now. 

It’s this: 

There is no one way you should be. 

There is no right way to do life. 

There is no right way to do anything in your life. 

There is simply you, and the present moment. 

You, and what's right there. 

And what you do in any present moment depends on your capacity and circumstances.

Your capacity changes – it can expand and contract and that's okay. 

Your circumstances change – things come and go and that's okay.

When you notice your capacity and notice your circumstances, you can choose your path based on what is true for you.

You can let  “shoulds” run your life. There's nothing wrong with that. It’s a path you can take. 

But I think there is more freedom (and fun) when we can see every moment as a new opportunity to notice and choose. On this path, I think it’s possible to build the life you truly want. 

You are just right, as you are. 

And the possibilities for your life are infinite. 

*

That is what I truly wanted to say to you. 

It came out in a way that feels good to me and feels true to who I am.

If I had let “shoulds” guide me rather than my internal compass, I'm sure I still would have written something that would have been fine to share. Something that would have meant something to you, even. 

But I want to live my life as much as possible authentic to who I am and what feels true to me. So for me, that means noticing as many “shoulds” as possible and choosing for myself what feels good to me. 

In this writing, that meant not forcing myself when I wasn't ready. That meant not writing something that didn't feel like “it" to me. 

So this is it. 

This is my graduation note to you. 

Maybe it doesn't look how it should or say what it should, but I believe it carries my love, and I hope you feel it.

I'm so proud of you. Your accomplishments are great but that's not what I mean. I'm proud of You: Who you are, just as you are. Your essence. Your light. 

And I hope you let it shine, as much as possible.

 

Changing direction

20 minutes of contemplative writing,
recorded 2 days + one year
after running farther
than I ever had
before

**

We ran straight when we should have turned right, the arrow pointed the correct way but we didn't see it, it was the falling light or the deep conversation - both, more likely - and the over fifty miles already run clouding my brain. 

A year later. Writing class on a Monday the day after getting back from a weekend up north - just like a year ago. Another Monday, another year.

A year later and I still think about it all the time: getting lost in the woods in the dark and not finishing the race.

It was good to be there this past weekend, with some of the same friends, running some miles but not a race, hiking some and still getting delightfully sore from that.

I missed the feeling of being in the event -- the possibilities and limits pushed -- while at the same time I was also somewhat grateful to observe that energy and not be part of it in the same way.

In some ways its hard to believe it was a year ago. 

It feels both close and at a distance.
                    Right under the surface and deeper down.
               I think about it less but sometimes it feels like often: running through regrets and what ifs and gratitude and wonder and certainties and questions.

Have I processed it, by now? Sort of, maybe.
Grief and elation,
    both, neither,
      together, separate.

I wondered if I would write about this and I am.
I'm not sure I'm writing what it deserves. The experience, I mean.
But I'm writing what is, what's right there, which is always enough.

Changing direction 

What has changed since then, about running?

I'm in the middle of a different exploration, I think. I am outside of structure. No clear goal aside from getting clearer about:
        what I get from running,
              what I give to running,
and what I want our relationship to feel like right now.

The word that pops in is harmony. What does that even mean. Notes played together in a way that sounds true.

I turned the page and lost my thought train.
I guess I
      changed directions.

I want to be so clear about my relationship with running that when running leaves me finally...(and it will, it's impermanent like everything else - or rather my body is impermanent)... 

Maybe running has an invisible magic like creativity that's always in the room and even when I can't channel it through my body the same way I can now, I will still be able to access it, still enjoy the magic.

Running is not my identity. It is one thing that makes up home for me. A place of ease and comfort, familiarity and safety, a port to charge. 

Wait.

What is it about running that feels like home? 

That running feels like home does not mean running IS home. 

It's more like a mirror. Or maybe a prism? 

Or am I the prism, and running passes through me, and on the other side I see colors. 

Those colors seem to be the effect of running but they're really the effect of ME. 

Running is just one kind of light that passes through the prism that is me.

Ah. 

Running isn't home.

The prism --(ME)-- is home. 

A beam of light passes though me, and my angles and edges and whatever else makes a prism work its magic cause the light to --
-- what? --
change direction? 

I forget how it works but there's something there.

exhalation

 hostile, 
         demanding
words.
then:

Silence.

*

Silence is a space for 

                    wondering
                           in
                       sadness:

Why did you say that to me?

Silence is a space for

                    spinning
                       logic
                     around
                        emotion:

What did you hope to accomplish?
Did you accomplish it?

*

I waited for you to break the silence.

I considered what
I
could say.
    but I don't think you would hear me
    and I don't care what you think.

*

Now I choose silence.

Silence as a space for

resting
          in 
              the
                    release

of what needs to be let go. 

can't think but can feel

It's too much.
The world is too much. 
I can't. 

it IS too much. 
it's okay if you can't
                                 think about it. 
but can you sink into your body?
where
           do you feel?

*

Sadness

             is 

        in my throat.

*

Wait. Maybe it's further down.

Let me see. 

*

No, I feel it in my throat. 

It's a rock.

I've been swallowing around it.
Pushing it down. 

 

well,
you don't have to force it to come up, either. 

*

Hm, okay. That's true. 

could you acknowledge it, right where it is?
release the fear of it coming up,
because it might not actually come up,
                                  and it would also be okay if it did.

it's okay to feel sad.
it's normal to feel sad.

(even though what happened/keeps happening

is not okay. not normal)

*

Yes. I could. 

*
*
*

The sadness isn't a rock,
                                       actually.
It's a bulb,
                  I think.
A bulb planted low in my throat.

When I release my grip on it a tendril emerges.

*

It doesn't do anything to change

this
fucked
up
world. 

*

But

I'm showing it to you
anyway. 

Inside Out and Outside In

 1/9/22 Retreat Writing

It feels good not to run.

That’s a true statement.

I’m the one who said it.

But there’s another side to it. Is there always another side, to everything?

Here, the other side is: it doesn’t feel good to not want to run. That’s not exactly the opposite, but a shifted other side. Or two things existing together.

It feels good to not run. Not running means I’m listening to what my body is saying. I’m proud of myself for listening.

But not wanting to in the first place, detecting the signal from my body, feels like an alarm bell.

I can’t help but think something is wrong.

And, well, it’s probably true – something is not as it usually is. Something is out of alignment. And that’s okay. It happens. I can be curious and present as I observe, and I can trust that desire will return.

But what if it doesn’t?

That’s an understandable question. But you know it’s not helpful to stay in that space. That’s future thinking and that’s what causes anxiety, for me.

Yesterday I wrote the following:

I turn myself *inside out* through writing and *outside in* through running long distances.

I felt excitement as I read those words back to myself because: they are true. And those words are coordinates to a truth I’ve always felt. Running and writing have always been connected for me. But I didn’t have the exact coordinates until yesterday. And now I do. The excitement I felt reading those words back is because with the coordinates in hand, I can get to the truth easier and faster.

If running is how I turn the outside in, and I don’t want to run right now, it follows that I might not have the capacity to take the outside in right now.

If writing is how I turn the inside out, it follows that writing might be the way to balance myself right now. I need to write, I need to get the inside out, so I can find the capacity to take the outside in again.

This feels like Alchemy.

Writing and running are ways I transmute energy.

My energy has been off lately.

My capacity to run and to write might be external barometers for how my energy is doing. Writing and running are weather reporters for me. I can check in on one or the other and easily see how I’m doing.

They are also release valves I can adjust. Or maybe locks for dams. Adjusting one or the other might raise or lower something within me. I can use them to balance myself.

Oh, okay. Right. I knew this, I think. At least on some level. But to intentionally name it gives it more power. Power tools. Ah ha. I see. Okay.

Write more, right now.

Feeling my feelings

 Sunday, 12/26/21

I sat down to work on my novel but I don't want to anymore. 
What I want to do is
name what I'm feeling,
which is

sad. 

Sadness is a tightness in my throat.
Sadness is a weight in my chest.
Right in the middle.
Heavy like a metal trash can filled with rocks. Not pebbles.  Not boulders. Rocks with heft that could be lifted one at a time without too much trouble. But in a pile like this, they can't be picked up all at once. 

And that's how I'm feeling right now: 
sad.

I would lay on my bed and scroll through my phone but that wouldn't feel good. 
Running didn't exactly feel good today. 
Putting pen to paper feels good, though. Drinking this warm tea feels good. 

Today while I was running, I came across a tree down across the trail. I had to climb over it to get by, and as I did so I stopped and stayed perched on it for a moment. Some thoughts floated through not fully formed. I wanted to catch them but I knew they weren't ready to be caught. I'm not sure if they're ready now, either, but I want to write them down, see what they look like. 

I am the wind.
I am the wood.
I am the one who watches.

I am the silence.
I am the crash. 
I am the silence
again.

I am
this
present
moment. 

And this one.
And this one. 
And this one,
too. 

I'm not sure I feel any better. But was better the goal? Was there even a goal? 

Write the next true thought:
I feel visible. 
I can better see myself. 

I put my hand on my chest, right where the sadness lives.
I ask my body what it needs. 
Which is the same thing as asking the sadness what it needs.
I think.

This is what I hear:
A little more room, please.

I can do that. 

Deep breaths give more space.
One after another.
One after another.

The sadness doesn't go away but it feels seen and held. 
And that's all it needs. 

This is (not) about Running

During the lead-up to a race, I always get nervous. Often, the night before I can't sleep at all. My guts do an unpleasant gymnastics routine the morning of. 

This annoys me.

Why is this happening?!? What for?!?

The stakes are quite low overall. I'm a solidly mid-pack runner. It's not like I'm trying to win anything, or even qualify for something. It's always me running alongside my own expectations. That's it. And even that's not a lot of pressure. Things don't always go as planned, and I'm okay with that. I love the process more than the outcome, anyway. 

So why the nerves?

It's this:

I'm willingly putting myself in the path of pain. 

I'm saying yes to it. 

I know that doing this is going to hurt. 
And I'm doing it anyway. 

I will be uncomfortable. 
But I want what's on the other side of the discomfort
more than I want to avoid it. 

I'm so curious about what's on the other side. 

I'll admit: time, pace, place -- I'm curious about those things, too.
Every time. 
I want to know what I'm capable of.
I want to see the metrics. 

But I'm even more curious about this:

What do I have the capacity for?

This is different than the numbers. 

This is about how big my container is.

How much can I hold?
What am I willing to feel?

My capacity is not fixed. 
It's made of something flexible. 
It can stretch. Unfold. Expand. 

Also I have choice. 
I can stop. I can opt out.
I can get away.  

But what if I want to stay?
What if I want to stay but pain is filling my body?
What then?

This:

I don't want to do this anymore. 
That's ok.
Remind me where you are.
Right here. 
Where?
Dirt under feet. Trees overhead. 
Wind singing in my ears and across my skin.
Stay there. Stay there. 
Okay.

I'm tired. I don't feel good anymore.
That's okay. You expected that. 
What can you do to let your body know
that you are safe? 
Drop my shoulders. Relax my face.
Get breath in my belly, not just my upper lungs.
Smile. Even if it's an imagined smile. 

Do that. Do that. 
Stay. 
Stay.
I will. I am. I will. I am. 

What do I have capacity for?
    Anything.
       Everything.

How much can my container expand?
    It's unmeasurable.
      It's infinite. 

Choose to stay. 
Stay. 
I'm here with you. 

suspended between

          My hands are on my knees.
I'm pitched forward, eyes on the ground
                                                     but not seeing it. 

          My breath is coming fast. 
                                             I'm letting it come fast. 
It is a reaction to extreme stress:
                                                bodily stress
                                                      emotional stress
                                                             energetic stress.
One exhale
            hardly ends
                        before the next inhale
                                                     begins.
           My arms are getting tingly. 

"I need you to do something for me,"
                                                   you say.
        "I need you to take a deep breath."

An exhale comes.
                  A quick inhale.
                                Another crashing exhale.

At the bottom of that breath I sense myself
Suspended between.

Suspended between
this exhale 
and the next inhale.

Suspended between
fear
and action

Suspended between
I don't want to do this anymore
and We have to figure out
       what we are going to do next.

No time passes.
It is a snapshot.
It is an illusion.
            It is nothing.
            A space where there is no
            thing at all.
                Neither inhale nor exhale.
                Neither fear nor action.
                Neither resistance nor planning. 
            It's the narrowest sliver.
            It's the widest gap.
            It's all dark.
            It's all light.
                It's neither.
                It's both. 

In that gap
I choose.

I choose that the next inhale
will be slower.
The next exhale
follows the example.

The panic passes.

I stay present. 

***

Suspended between
the past and the future
                  is
            right now. 

Right now is the only 
real thing.

It's a still point.
It's part of a trajectory. 

It's both, depending on the perspective.

Zoom all the way out
and you can see a line,
Every moment that's ever been.
Every moment that will be.

Zoom all the way in
and it's a single pixel,
out of time. 

How will we experience it?
We get to choose.               

                                                 

did not finish

20 minutes of contemplative writing,
recorded 2 days
after running farther
than I ever have
before

***

Equal. Even. Equal. Even.  

Preparation does not equal success. 

Effort in does not guarantee an even measure of reward.  

These are very static statements. Black and white thinking. Not really any room for softer perspectives.

  

I’m thinking too hard. Or rather, I’m thinking, period.
Trying, pushing, forcing.

Flow is found when the effort to find it isn’t there at all.
Sometimes the conditions require effort, and flow never comes.  

And that’s okay.  

One of the most important take-aways 

from running 

                           63 miles 

but not officially completing the race course 

because 

I missed a turn 

and ended up lost 

                           in the dark 

                                              was this: 

Sometimes you do everything right.  
Sometimes you find the flow  
                             not by looking for it  
                             but by running into it,  
                                          running with it  
                                             and on it  
                                             and through it  
                                             and part of it  
                               because it’s part of you. 

Sometimes the magic really is there. 

   And yet.  

      And yet.  

And yet  
               you find yourself 
                                             miles from where you’re supposed to be.  

Miles from where you’re supposed to be, 
          with only the pack on your back  
                   that’s unfortunately empty of food  
                             because you ate what you had  
                                and you were supposed to be somewhere else 

                                                hours ago,  
                                with all the provisions to choose from.  

Miles from where you’re supposed to be  
          with only one of your oldest friends by your side. 

I realize it sounds scary.

For a little bit there we were both really scared.
But of course, people knew where we should have been
and of course, people who know what they're doing
looked for and pretty quickly found us.  

But still.  

  But still.  

                  

                     And yet.  

                               And yet.  

Not finishing does not equal failure.
Just like preparation does not equal success. 

I don’t like the words failure and success. 

I don’t  
             haven't 
                           will not ever 
                            consider this event a failure.  

It was a  
                    Multi- 
                              Faceted 
                    Experience.  

Ugh. I wish I would have chosen to go a different direction with this writing.  

Missed turn. 
Darkness. 
Headlamps flashing on signs
that pointed the right direction 

                               for the wrong part of the course. 

 

I don’t know where I hoped to get in this writing 

        but it doesn’t feel like anywhere.  

And that’s okay.   

There is no finish line.  
There actually are no course markers.  
Just one foot in front of the other.  

Sometimes pain.  
Sometimes elation.  

Close and far. 
Almost and not quite. 

 

Time  
        and distance  
                               and right here  
                                       right now. 

A truck’s headlights break the night behind us.