This morning, I watched a grave being dug while I brushed my teeth. I live in a house across the street from a National Cemetery and my bathroom has a small dormer window from which I can see a large swatch of graves. The contrast of performing such a mundane task while watching such a profound task has left me feeling melancholy.
School started with a whopping amount of work. By the second day, I was already feeling behind and overwhelmed. There was a time when I would just struggle though, work harder, be harsh to myself in both mind and body to make sure I was as productive as I needed to be. This week, I said, "Fuck it." I dropped one of my classes, did just enough work to muddle though, and made sure I slept at least 7 hours every night.
My productivity does not determine my worth.
This lesson has been accompanying me my whole life, but I finally feel like I am truly shifting into living the reality of it.
This quarter I am taking Latinx Theology and Ethics, Conscious Conflict, and Story Telling and Narrative Justice. It is bliss. And since I dropped a class, the workload feels just right. It will most likely set me back in my goal to graduate next year, but I find that when weighed against me mental, physical, and emotional health, it truly doesn't matter. I am feeling the impact of the cumulative losses of the pandemic, I viscerally feel the grief and loss of the Marshall wildfire and the recent mass shooting in Denver. I am raw, I am tired, and this is all I can manage in this moment.
I think I will make brushing my teeth while looking at the Cemetery a daily ritual. It will keep me grounded in the fact that this is a short and precious life and I am not here to grind myself down.
Bryant, my favorite 13 year old and partner in play.
In the Storytelling class this week, we had to present a story that introduced us to the class. The entire telling had to take less than 3 minutes, so it was a challenge. Here is the transcript of the story I told...
Once upon a time, there was a child born in a place that existed between life and death. The child was small, but their heart and imagination were vast. The child’s family found her vastness to be too big, messy, and complicated to exist in their narrow, comfortable lives, so they smothered and squashed her to fit.
So when, as a young woman, she left her home to explore more of the spaces of life, she endured all those who would harm and manipulate her, just as her family had taught her to do. Yet, while she often felt like a deflated balloon, seeing others diminished brought about a huge explosion of air that filled her to bursting.
As she struggled in these dark, nasty places, many of her family found themselves walking toward the spaces of death. More family began to pass over, even the young. The woman lost count of all the dead. So worn down from the caregiving and grief, she nearly followed them, but life gently pulled her back and with so many in her family gone, she found there was room. Room to begin unpacking some of her vastness.
So, as she unpacked the pieces of herself that had been stuffed away,
she also began to grow a new life.
Soon, there was a child born in a place that existed between life and death. The child was small, but their heart and imagination were vast. And the woman loved the big, messy, and complicated parts; and the child grew wild and happy and free. Together, they were beings of vastness, and as the child grew, the woman grew, too.
Their joyous, rambunctious life attracted others- others who had existed in spaces that made them feel like deflated balloons. But together, the woman, the child, and the others created space that was helium and light.
So when it was time for the child, now a young woman, to explore more of the spaces of life, they all parted. Now the woman continues to walk the spaces between life and death; alone, but not lonely. Starting new adventures to expand her vast heart and imagination.
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