I've just come back from a visit with my favorite Tree.
He's a big old white pine tree that lines the river front.
There are determined cat tails that poke out from the snow banks,
Their babies still floating on to find their new ground.
Casting shadows on the rippled snow blanket.
This week.
Holy Fuck.
I don't know why I love writing to you when I'm in the shit.
I think maybe it's because I always end up writing what I need to hear most?
Subconscious Medecine?
maybe?
Shall we?
____________________
My kids never went to the Ikea Ball Room.
Like never.
Not once.
And trust me, we tried.
Something about being swallowed up whole.
Something about those grimy plastic orbs
And getting lost at Target...
I guess it just didn't do it for them.
This week, I felt like I was in that ball room-
Constantly juggling the same things to come up for air.
But there are so many of them, you can't help but to stop trying to catch them all..
Subsequently dropping the older ones.
Some get thwarted by giant arm swoops,
Others, you tuck under your chin in order to clear the path.
And head straight to the exit sign.
There's something about Big Times that enable us to rise to the occasion.
Since my last Love Letter, I've gotten so much done.
And not in a braggy way,
But in a head down, I-can-do-hard-things kinda way.
Some of those are great! (30 000 words on my manuscript!)
Some of those... not so much. (hello pancakes for dinner and no showering for 4 days!)
I'll spare you the details...
Because honestly?
You've got your stuff too:
Your big month, your meetings, your sick kids + parents and houses and mortgages and loans and groceries.
It's the same. My stuff, your stuff... it's a different flavor, but essentially the same.
Here are the Coles Notes:
I feel like those baby cat tails.
Hanging onto dear life all winter,
Because somewhere deep inside me
Is the capacity to create millions of new beautiful baby cat tails.
So I hang on, through the winds, and the snow falls,
And I hope that wherever I land,
I can nudge out enough warm soil, a tiny bit of heat
To build a small nest and wait for the unfolding.
Our natural resilience is astounding.
It grounds my butt in this chair
To sort all these ideas out and attempt to write something worth while.
It leads you downhill when you"re terrified of falling.
It sends you on an airplane, to go and give love in hard times
It sends you straight into the depth of the medical world, for test and tests and more tests
It can ask you to be patient
Or to take a giant risk.
Our resilience keeps us together
It helps us grow equanimity
It spreads grace
With imagination, resilience got us here.
To today.
It brought you this email.
Literally.
We've used resilience and imagination for 70 000 years to conquer and advance. (ok, pillage too- but maybe we'll keep that for another letter, yes?)
Those are the skills that we, Homo Sapien ( I love you Yuwal Harari!) used to discover agriculture, and religion, and art, and mathematics and architecture.
Resilience and Imagination
Are the skills you and I need
to navigate that Ikea Ball Room of life.
Those are the skills we need to float on and plant our next babies.
Imagination and resilience get us Home
To the place where we go to make beauty out of all the messy parts and pieces.
xo
Em |
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