I was the one in my family who had an awful intuition that the Pandemic was going to go on much longer than most people allowed themselves to believe way back in 2020 when most people acknowledged we were in a pandemic. But even I couldn’t allow myself to believe that the huge milestones down the road for our family, both those already planned for and those just hoped for, would be disrupted, or missed altogether. Fast forward almost 4 years now and turning 50 last weekend marked the passing of the last of a long list of unfulfilled events.
So, I took the advice of Rainer Rilke and spent a great deal of my birthday in solitude writing my way through all of it. The sadness at the state of the world and internal challenges, unfulfilled desires from the past and for this milestone birthday, I put them all on paper. And to my great surprise these heavy words became a vessel for me to travel safely through the murky waters of transitioning to this new season of life. A love poem to myself and my beloved that I will forever cherish as a significant part of this milestone birthday.
We all know that words can transport us, and the readers among us cling to that powerful truth. But I’m learning more and more that writing my own words gives me the power to safely traverse the space between my reality and my dreams and to experience a strong sense of agency on my journey toward joy.
“…Save yourself from these general themes [e.g., love poems] and seek those which your own everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, passing thoughts and the belief in some sort of beauty-describe all these with loving, quiet, humble sincerity, and use, to express yourself, the things in your environment, the images from your dreams, and the objects of your memory. If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke, Paris, February 17th. 1903 | Letters to a Young Poet (1954), pgs. 16-17
Half-Time Show
On the eve of my 50th Birthday
24 hours from now I’ll claim a half -century of life
I always imagined marching up to this much maligned milestone and throwing a healthy portion of pride all over it, celebrating the monumental triumph of turning early years of trauma into growth
Imagined praise from myself and others for getting what I wanted most in before the halftime show of my life began- I think I started planning this epic party when I turned 30
But here we are 24 hours away from the halftime show and there is nothing I once imagined on the field Ruptures in the fabric of the world echo silent fissures from within Groping for solid places to stand as old cracks meet new
And yet I am held Lifted over the fissures Invited to see through my beloved’s eyes when I can’t get my own into focus
So here we are 24 hours away from showtime and I realize there’s nothing I used to imagine on the field Nothing except the things I now can’t live without: The truths we see and reveal in each other that continually set us free in a world on fire The way we hold each other’s hearts, hands, and bodies tightly in presence and ecstasy and loosely in the kind of solitude the great mystics praise The art we make with our words our work and our commitment to growth above all else His voice——- I cannot live without its deep familiar resonance that takes fragments of chaos and transmutes them into healing balm for me, our children, the world…. Our children and the beautiful nest of a co-created home that grounds us and enables us to fly
So tomorrow night I’ll mark off that last square on the 49th line of my Memento Mori Calendar with ceremonial flourish and then I’ll walk gently out onto the field and into the next era of my life hand in hand with all I’ve ever wanted and can’t live without
So what about you my “Still Coviding” Friend? What words will you use to create your own vessel in which to continue the journey of your dreams? What word-vessels can you construct to give you safe passage through the stormy waves of trashed expectations and alternate and less preferred destinations we so often experience in this way of life? What word-vessels can help you find the peace and regulation necessary to navigate the increasing existential crises of our world? I think we need to be reminded that our dreams haven’t died just because so many parts of us and our previous ways of living have, along with so many precious lives since this pandemic began. And now in a time of such tumultuous conflict around the world, I believe that keeping hope alive and well through our words is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and our children.
“I never have been in despair about the world. Enraged. I’ve been enraged by the world, but never despair. I cannot afford despair…you can’t tell the children there is no hope.”
- James Baldwin