Life's Questions
So its no secret that I have been dealing with a crazy case of homesickness. Not the kind that make you long for days underneath family and friend - although I do miss them - but the kind that makes you question your ability to make rational decisions with realistic outcomes. There are mornings that I awake in my small space and long for the house that I left behind replete with a gated backyard and personal garage. All the things I gave up as I set my life ablaze in search of something better, but what is better? Honestly. With everything there is a list of trade offs that we make in order to have the thing that we think is better. Yes, I have a better job (in every sense of the word) and a fresh place to pitch my tent, but I often time feel very much alone. I have the ability to come and go as I so choose but now I must worry about Theo and Charlie in a way that I didn't have to before. My commutes are ridiculously short. In six months I have only amassed 1000 miles on my car, but oh how I long for a serious drive somewhere. I say all that to come back around to the question of what is better? As I age, better has taken on a new context. I am more into paying attention to the physiological responses that my body exhibits. I am also asking myself does this sense of "better" lean more into my comfort zone or does it inspire me to dream?
I did two things recently to always cause me to call into question my understanding of "better": I recently committed to only reading fiction books for the duration of the year. In particular, I am obsessively devouring everything that Octavia Butler ever penned for public consumption. It hit me a few weeks ago that we can only create the world that we are able to freely envisage. If we can bend the Universe with our thoughts, manifest God through our ability to see with new eyes and a renewed mind, what would this world look like? What would "better" actually be? I find that my mind springs open when I am left without linear storytelling and the anchors of a limited reality. The notion that what we see is all that there is falls by the wayside. In an interview, author Junot Diaz speaks of his love of science fiction and the idea that "community" is bigger than just the here and now. That it encompasses our ancestors and future forms of who we become through those who come after us. It resonated so strongly with me that I have also taken to asking myself the very real question would my grandmothers and granddaughters approve of my actions? I am learning to unravel my mind in a way that I feel will unlock a lot of what has been hidden deep inside. Good things that need to be use for the better.
Secondly, I ran across a Nayyirah Waheed poem on my Instagram feed that reminded me that how I feel is just as important as the consequences of my actions, if not more so. She asks three questions as they pertain to our relationships:
"How is your heart?"
"Is your breath happy here?"
"Do you feel free?"
Every morning I have taken to asking these very beautiful but very serious questions because if my heart, head, and gut are not feeling a shared good then something is off and it becomes my job to tend to this misalignment. I am finding that when my inner planets align my outer universe has a stillness. So I write them down and listen for the answers that my body is willing to give me. What's interesting about this process is that it requires that I - a girl who is constantly in her own head - must rearrange my internal living spaces so that I sit squarely at the center of my being and embrace stillness. Not this meditative soft light kind of stuff, but a real sit with my breath, check my pulse, scan my muscles for resistance work. I am also mindfully aware of my physical resistance to being fully engaged. If I cant lose myself in something, I must question if it something that is truly worth my time.
So that brings me back around to this thing called "better" and whether I am in a state of better now. Easy answer- no, not really. I am still training myself to see the world as a hall of mirrors that shows us who we are in very difference times and spaces. Understanding that at any given moment there are infinite versions and parts of me each existing in tandem building off of one another (I am a strong believer in String Theory. God is too sophisticated to be linear). This requires a different way of making decisions and that sometimes confuses people and situations in a way that doesn't fit the traditional notion of better. I have found that seeing the multiplicity of things can be an isolating experience as others don't see what you see. They can but they cant. If "better" is lonely then maybe I am there? Asking myself these questions everyday points out just how far I have come and how much further I have to go before my heart, breath, and feelings are so in sync that they become one. Just goes to prove that I am a work in progress, still learning to trust what my body is asking me to feel. To experience. A funny aside, my sense of smell is slowly returning. If you don't breathe, you don't really smell or taste. Because of my love of food, I am calling that side of myself back into remembrance slowly but surely. So there is some betterment happening. But is this life I now lead better? Far from it, but I keep urging myself and questioning myself into a state of better believing that in this body, better is like a horizon line. You can get to it but once you do, your perspective shifts because you have too shifted. So this place of better keeps moving and you learn to navigate and move with it.
Simone, how is your heart today?
"Heavy"
Simone is your breath happy here?
"Its still too shallow but let me breath deeper and think on it some more."
Simone, do you feel free?
"Not today, but I'll keep chipping away at the walls that have been placed around me."
I did two things recently to always cause me to call into question my understanding of "better": I recently committed to only reading fiction books for the duration of the year. In particular, I am obsessively devouring everything that Octavia Butler ever penned for public consumption. It hit me a few weeks ago that we can only create the world that we are able to freely envisage. If we can bend the Universe with our thoughts, manifest God through our ability to see with new eyes and a renewed mind, what would this world look like? What would "better" actually be? I find that my mind springs open when I am left without linear storytelling and the anchors of a limited reality. The notion that what we see is all that there is falls by the wayside. In an interview, author Junot Diaz speaks of his love of science fiction and the idea that "community" is bigger than just the here and now. That it encompasses our ancestors and future forms of who we become through those who come after us. It resonated so strongly with me that I have also taken to asking myself the very real question would my grandmothers and granddaughters approve of my actions? I am learning to unravel my mind in a way that I feel will unlock a lot of what has been hidden deep inside. Good things that need to be use for the better.
Secondly, I ran across a Nayyirah Waheed poem on my Instagram feed that reminded me that how I feel is just as important as the consequences of my actions, if not more so. She asks three questions as they pertain to our relationships:
"How is your heart?"
"Is your breath happy here?"
"Do you feel free?"
Every morning I have taken to asking these very beautiful but very serious questions because if my heart, head, and gut are not feeling a shared good then something is off and it becomes my job to tend to this misalignment. I am finding that when my inner planets align my outer universe has a stillness. So I write them down and listen for the answers that my body is willing to give me. What's interesting about this process is that it requires that I - a girl who is constantly in her own head - must rearrange my internal living spaces so that I sit squarely at the center of my being and embrace stillness. Not this meditative soft light kind of stuff, but a real sit with my breath, check my pulse, scan my muscles for resistance work. I am also mindfully aware of my physical resistance to being fully engaged. If I cant lose myself in something, I must question if it something that is truly worth my time.
So that brings me back around to this thing called "better" and whether I am in a state of better now. Easy answer- no, not really. I am still training myself to see the world as a hall of mirrors that shows us who we are in very difference times and spaces. Understanding that at any given moment there are infinite versions and parts of me each existing in tandem building off of one another (I am a strong believer in String Theory. God is too sophisticated to be linear). This requires a different way of making decisions and that sometimes confuses people and situations in a way that doesn't fit the traditional notion of better. I have found that seeing the multiplicity of things can be an isolating experience as others don't see what you see. They can but they cant. If "better" is lonely then maybe I am there? Asking myself these questions everyday points out just how far I have come and how much further I have to go before my heart, breath, and feelings are so in sync that they become one. Just goes to prove that I am a work in progress, still learning to trust what my body is asking me to feel. To experience. A funny aside, my sense of smell is slowly returning. If you don't breathe, you don't really smell or taste. Because of my love of food, I am calling that side of myself back into remembrance slowly but surely. So there is some betterment happening. But is this life I now lead better? Far from it, but I keep urging myself and questioning myself into a state of better believing that in this body, better is like a horizon line. You can get to it but once you do, your perspective shifts because you have too shifted. So this place of better keeps moving and you learn to navigate and move with it.
Simone, how is your heart today?
"Heavy"
Simone is your breath happy here?
"Its still too shallow but let me breath deeper and think on it some more."
Simone, do you feel free?
"Not today, but I'll keep chipping away at the walls that have been placed around me."
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