I took a trip

We are each navigating one thing or another, all marked by the common thread of the passage of time, aging, and all of its infinite implications. I cannot do this alone.

A little over a week ago, I was having my picture taken next to giant cacti so I could text them to Freddy and try to explode his mind. He’s never seen such plants up close, which, having lived in the desert for so many of my early years, honestly blows my mind. The frequency with which I visit my southwestern home has certainly decreased since I moved to New England. For a few reasons, but the most glaring of which is pure distance. I like to joke that it is a quicker trip to the UK or Iceland than it is to Tucson. But I haven’t exactly traveled there either.

More and more, I have been feeling the time warp of the past six years. Moving here, having Freddy, followed by the multi-year distortion of Covid. It has made it strange and often impossible to track distances, such as time. I look at pictures of Maple and Eider as they were when we moved to Vermont, Maple 13 and Eider 10, and I can barely process how small they were. How young. This disorientation makes me feel like I have lost time, and for someone who dabbles in the field of nostalgia as readily as myself, this is a particular horror.

I also haven’t seen close friends, the ones I’ve had since I was barely grown myself, for stretches so long and drawn out they feel like eternities. I am not the best phone chatter, and so some of these deep casms of absence and silence might as well be eternal. But traveling to Tucson last week delivered me into the arms of friends whom I have known, loved, and been loved by since my twenties. Some as early as 21, but all before I hit 30. Quite a stretch indeed. These are my dearest ones. Women I never see, and yet every time I do, even after years and years and years, they love me just the same. In an instant, we are back to the ease and closeness and connection that we left off at 2, 3, or 6 years ago.

Spending this time with such beloved friends, especially during a time that I suspect I may look back on as being relatively dark once I am well and truly out of it, was a balm for my being. Time together with them restored me to myself. Reminded me that my most natural state of being is one of boundless, infinite love. Free and unguarded. As ready to laugh as I am to cry. It is all rich and real and beautiful. They are medicine to every part of me, and to say I am grateful to have spent some time not just with each of them but with the parts of myself that light up in their company is to fall short of the depth and potency of this gift of time and togetherness. It was profoundly essential to me in a way that I was doing my best to pretend was not necessary. As ever, the joke is on me. I cannot muscle through this life. No matter how hard I continue to try.

And then of course, there is the yoga. The container that keeps holding us, one way or another, through all manner of life and its variety. It should come as no surprise that I think Christina continues to be one of the most masterful yoga instructors out there. She has certainly held my attention for the better part of three decades. Over the past few years, she has elevated the peak pose approach of sequencing to an art form. She essentially models her structure after the five-paragraph essay, and in so doing creates a pose-building project that integrates her depth of understanding of asana with functional range conditioning preparations. Among the myriad other subtleties she has picked up over the course of her ongoing explorations. It is genius. We went on a full-body journey within each of the four sessions, arriving at Vrksasana, Padangustasana, Urdhva Dhanurasana, and Parivritta Paschimottanasana as our humble peak postures.

At one point, she invited us to consider what has been a thread in our lives (of practice). Something that stays, that persists, something which we return to again and again and again. That essential. Sometimes I find it hard to chew on these prompts, but after listening to the responses from the other folks in my small group, I made the slow but sturdy connection between my tendency to take care and my abiding desire to tell the truth. And it is that, perhaps more than anything else, that has guided and informed my life. I have not always been great at it, and I by no means came to it easily, but I believe that without the truth, we have nothing. It is the foundation, the beginning, and also the context that carries us through. This was an interesting little piece for me to excavate during these conversations and something I imagine that I will spend some long measure of time considering. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.

The evening before my early departure to Arizona, I needed to head up to the high school for the annual open house. It is really important to me to touch base with each of my kids’ teachers early in the fall, even if it gets a little redundant year to year. In many ways, to me, it is the bare minimum. Make contact. Get a bead. Let them know I am present and value not just them but their relationship with my kid. On this occasion, Eider’s European Lit teacher let me know that she was very impressed with his start-of-the-year letter and asked me if I’d like a copy. It’s a little bit about him, his story, along with a description of what would make up his perfect day. I was encouraged by the quality and improvement of his writing itself, and then also wholly moved by his description of an ideal day. It was, in his words, a day that was relatively commonplace and repeatable. It includes going to the gym to work out together, followed by a swim at the reservoir. Getting shots up in the yard with Chris. Basketball or video games with friends. And of course, a lot of food. What it expresses is his satisfaction with what is. With this life. Here and now. It was beautiful and tender and moving.

When I arrived home from my trip and finally had a chance to check in with Maple over the phone, I shared his letter with her. It brought her to tears. She was like: I miss him. And his childhood is continuing to happen even though she is not here. I think there is a certain sting inside of that awareness. The two of them, in particular, have almost always been together. Their stories are interwoven in ways that they may never replicate with anyone else. Eider and I Facetimed Maple late last night, while Chris was working and Freddy was asleep. She told him how much she enjoyed his writing and that she missed him. We could see and feel her sadness and longing through the small phone window. He replied that it is hard to believe that he is beginning his second whole year without her. A simple response. But we each felt its underlying weight.

Chris said to me recently that he understands now why I started to miss Maple in the years leading up to her departure. Even though she was still here. He is feeling it now with Eider and wondering how it was that he didn’t quite understand with Maple. That heading off to school is more than a part-time absence, but that it puts a very clear line in the sand. Childhood on one side, everything else on the other. You don’t go back once you’ve crossed it, even when you come home for the summer. We are at this ramp-up with Eider. He has stepped onto the launch pad, and I think we all see it for what it is more now than we ever could have with her. As with all things in our family, Maple lights the way. These transitions are my life’s greatest triumphs coupled with the most crippling devastation. When winning feels a lot like losing. And yet, this is the direction we strive to head in, day in and day out. Independence supported by connection. Discovery and autonomy backed by honesty and radical truth-telling. Again, I remind myself, I am here for it. Even when it hurts. And it almost always hurts. A lot.

So, I am profoundly reminded in this moment how much I need my own friendships, the long-woven loves of my life, to both offer and receive support through life’s transitions. Much of the weekend away was this sort of communing. We are each navigating one thing or another, all marked by the common thread of the passage of time, aging, and all of its infinite implications. I cannot do this alone. Nor would I ever in a million years want to try and muscle this magnificent act all by myself. I am needed, but I am also in need. There is something so solid and earthy in acknowledging this. I am real. This is real. And, it is ok. Ultimately. It is.