Happiness Only Real When Shared

We watched Into the Wild this weekend. I remember being so moved by the book when it came out; I was 24 years old. Watching the movie at 36 gave me new perspective. I went to bed thinking about the relationships we make and break throughout our lives. The feelings of isolation we can feel when surrounded by too many people. There are such elements of naïveté in Chris’s story. It’s tragic really that he wasn’t more prepared because he seems to have been a really great guy, just young and a bit overly confident. He was the type of person who could have come out of the wild and made a significant impact with the rest of his life. Yet perhaps his impact was meant to be made through death. In death he became a beacon, a reminder that there is a raw wildness that exists in each of us, a wildness that most of us are disconnected from, a wildness that we need to find our way back to.

This time as I watched the story unfold a pit formed in my chest. Children make their own choices, they blame you for how you raised them, they die. Sometimes they die. Swirling ache moved from my chest into my shoulders and down to my knees, thinking of all the mothers who have had to let their babies go. I sighed deeply, trying to release this grip of fear, “I don’t know if I can do this. This parenthood thing is going to be too hard.” Slade leaned his head down to my chest and said, “It’s going to be wonderful” and resumed watching the movie. It’s going to be wonderful.

And by the end of the movie I had come full circle. It became clear to me that our babies aren’t really ours; they never really belong to us. Ultimately, our babies belong to another mother who calls each one of us back to her one way or another. Letting go, giving up control, over and over again. We are children of the universe; we belong to no one but her. Deep breath, feel the extent to which we connect. This whole deal is about leaning into the experience, pushing up against life and feeling it intensely. And I’m reminded of a quote from Dawna Markova: “I will not live an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me.” Let the heart break wide open …

Jump

I've just decided I need to jump in and write every coupla days. Not so much editing, it's not like this is going into a major publication. Otherwise I won't get more than one post up a month and that is not satisfying my experiment of writing about philanthropy as it occurs to me on a daily basis. Part of the problem is that I need to be more conscious about it during the day, while changing diapers and going for walks and fixing dinner. It's a little like poetry, finding beauty in the shadows and intricacy in the stillness.

And it's about clearing space. It always comes back to clearing space. I tend to clutter up my brain with inconsequential details in an attempt to avoid being present. This year at home with Liam was supposed to be an opportunity to unclutter, to see my breath and feel the weight of life ticking through me. It's been 8 months ... but what I also need to remind myself is that there are seasons of creativity. I am sowing right now, I am tending to the daily drudgery of doing in order that something will blossom. Yet to get the blossom you have to remain diligent in practice. So this is me stepping into the random abyss that is my mind, a jumbled jambled bramble of thought. Unedited.

Breathe (with thanks to Alexi Murdoch)

I was reminded the other night that the whole world begins and ends with how you treat yourself. I spent last week in California helping my sister with her two week old baby, while also taking care of my 7 month old baby, who decided because he was in a new place he would go back to waking up 3-4x during the night. I came home exhausted with the start of a cold, which over the course of this week has unleashed a fury unlike a cold I’ve had in years, in part because I haven’t been getting the kind of sleep you need to really fight one of these things. Tossing and turning, listening to Liam crying out at random intervals because, yes indeed, he’s now coming down with it, I got up and put on the kettle. The kitchen was quiet, it was 12:30am and every time I swallowed my throat burned and my head filled with snot so that it felt like I was drowning. “I am miserable,” my brain raged, “I am tired and frustrated and I want someone to take care of me right now.” Lower lip puckered, stomping of feet. I sat down on the stool in the kitchen sipping Throat Coat tea and breathing in menthol. My head continued to dial out all of the things I should be doing and all of the things I was failing at, including getting a cold. I plugged into the iPod to block out the brain, like a teenager locking the door on their room and turning up the music. In the quiet of the shadow In the corner of a room Darkness moves upon you Like a cloud across the moon resonates against the cranium making the deep quiet around me all the more palpable. The nuances of the music are thrilling when listened to through earphones. It provides invisibility; you’re inside this bubble looking out with your own sound system. I needed to be reminded that I can get there without going anywhere.

I am alone here, I am always alone. I’m looking around the kitchen in the soft glow of the moonlight and realize that man, I am so loved. I am incredibly privileged to be alive. I came across the thought in some reading recently that people are dying every moment and so many of them would give everything to be you, alive, regardless of your current situation. I have a cold. It will go away tantrum thrower, and you will feel better and it will be Spring and life will go on. I am reminded that how I treat myself is what I am able to project out to others. I calmed my breathing down and finally was able to get some air in and out of my nose. If nothing else, a cold is just a reminder to slow down and take care of myself. Not a reason to get mad at Slade for putting in ear plugs so that he could avoid the cacophony of his family, or to toss and turn with dramatic aplomb to show him how really sick and miserable I am. And I heard the voice, sad and small: be nice to me. This is where everything starts. It’s hard to remember to do this simple thing when you get caught up in the day to day. But day after day, if you aren’t nice to yourself you stop caring. And if you stop caring about yourself there is no way you can care about others. This is the lesson I constantly touch back upon, a buoy bobbing in the water that I bounce against as I race by in my speedboat life. It just doesn’t work any other way.