squeeze

from 10/18/23

I think I go through these phases of wanting to try and not wanting to try, it’s like all enthusiasm or none at all, the crest and fall of a wave. Or the faces of a moon. Or the fullness of my body. Sometimes I am ready to meet the world and stir things up a bit and others I am ready to settle in and back and down, like my house is a cave and I am wintering here. And in that way, I am not sure if it is anything at all outside of myself that ignites or dampens openness; I suspect more than anything that it is my own blood and the tides inside of me that push me out or pull me in. I do know that when things are rolling they are indeed rolling and it feels good to make shit happen in those seasons. I want to form connections and listen deeply and learn and understand everything new and interesting. But more and more lately I have been feeling this withdrawing current, like I am walking into this quieter life, up on this hillside, with reference points closer at hand and a simpler more self-contained cadence emerging. I am less interested in much that is further afield. And yet it feels worth noting for myself that that isn’t quite the same as a closing off, this withdrawal. It seems more accurate to understand this new season with completely different eyes as to what it means to be open now. I want less to do with what is neither here nor there and everything to do with what is at hand and the possibility that this life feels suddenly so rich with. I think this is me tapping out of the hustle culture paradigm and opting into land stewardship and scaling back to the roots, like where this whole ideal began however many odd decades ago. Back when we were just beginning to “make it work”. I don’t know. I am open to the big heartache of life right now. I wake up every day thankful for and deeply aware of the sameness and also of its finitude. I do not feel a limit on how much love or forgiveness or rage or gratitude I am capable of. And I am not afraid of it. There are so many ways in which this last act of raising children before they fledge is like this spectacular final performance, my greatest work, my ultimate act of creativity in which I give every last drop and don’t even consider for a second leaving anything on the table. I imagine there will be this moment, some massive poof, like when a puffball releases her spores into space. And then nothing. No backward glance. No thank yous or see ya laters. Just this impending emptiness out of which emerges some new and unknown and slightly less significant form. In which I am owed nothing and that will be perfect cuz I never spared a single fucking drop of me.