EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS IN ANTICIPATION OF SPRINGTIME :)
This past week I had a birthday. I turned 27, which sounds about right. One of my favorite things to do around my birthday is ask people older than I am what the age I’m turning was like for them. Most have said that 27 was not their favorite! Simply, oh well. I had a sweet day, though it poured snow as if it were veritably Christmas eve in the North Pole! However, I love my friends and family:) I am ultimately very blessed!
I love birthdays – not just my own, but in general -- because it is wonderful to have an excuse to celebrate a person’s life. It’s a pleasure to celebrate life in general, to be honest! But of course concentrated attention, in practice, is a complicated thing. Shockingly, it can be overwhelming to be paid a lot of attention to! Adding to the confusion of being seen, my birthday is March 12, a day of chaos – not just for the fact that it’s essentially the date the pandemic began, but also because I have enough memories of it being warm to hope that it will be springtime, but the majority of the time it truly is just winter.
^one would think March 12 would look like THIS, no??? perhaps not.
Mostly, I am just grateful to be celebrated and to be alive. In considering my own existence, and anticipating another year of it, I find myself flooded with questions. None is immediately pressing, but all feel somewhat insistent.
I’m trying to welcome these questions and even allow myself to consider that they are well-timed; mid-March ends Pisces season and begins Aries. The Vernal equinox pops up like a little crocus. Pisces, said to be a culmination of all the signs combined, finishes the zodiac which means that Aries -crisp, fierce, fresh, begins the astrological new year. Makes sense!
These might read a bit like middle-of-the-night thoughts, and that is because they are! Hehe! I have been doing my special thing where my body wakes me consistently at 4 am because my consciousness wants to ‘discuss’ something, and then I force myself into docile stupidity by watching something dumb with blue light glasses on for as long as it takes to be fatigued, and then I sleep hard until it’s time to start the day. So!
Head’s up, sorry, and welcome :)
FLURRY OF PRE-SPRING EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS:
-what’s up with COVID, am I right ??? lol but actually what is the next wave and also how does having had it impact the body long-term?
-Wow, speaking of the body. Don’t get me started! These past couple years have been big years for me in reading and learning about the symbology of corporeal form. I.e. The Body Keeps the Score, diving into Jung, studying Healing with Whole Foods, engaging in more body-based work. It’s kind of been my entry into… whatever this invisible pursuit it. Wellness, or spirituality, or regarding the body as a metaphor. All I’ll say is that I would not be so interested in this stuff if it did not resonate deeply with my experience.
One is not often drawn to these things because they feel amazing to begin with. Tbh, I am a pretty physically tired. Cooking professionally is so confusing because it makes me feel dynamic and alive, and at the same time it is quite a lot of exertion. How does one treat physical discomfort and pain as helpful information? It is hard!
-Ok SO my boyfriend (love him! <3 ) and I have been obsessively watching Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. I have SO many questions. The show (don’t write it off!!) is often hilarious and campy, but ultimately reckons with the contemporary dominance of Mormonism, leading to pretty probing questions around intersections between faith and folklore. Lots of talk of cults and excommunication. The women use the phrase ‘religious trauma’ colloquially, on the slopes (they honestly are great skiers) or at the plastic surgery salon (which does exist. Beauty Lab, baby!). Anyway, it’s mesmerizing and reminds me how vast and intense this country is. We’re in the middle of the second season, so no one tell me anything! Also, we love Heather!!!
I keep remembering this moment I was driving cross-country a few years ago and we pulled up outside an In-n-Out in the suburbs Salt Lake City. It was the start of summer and I peered from the parked car into the windows of the restaurant, feeling very detached from reality because something about how wholesome the teens looked inside, and how blonde and pretty, made me feel like I was living in 1955.
^this was that very day!
-What is my favorite restaurant right now in NYC? I actually have no idea!
-There is, of course, a global crisis happening at the moment. Within our own country, people are hurting one another at alarming rates, too. There is so much anger, it is potent, and the earth is heating up and falling apart. It’s been clear for some time that the world is not feeling well, is sick. At risk of being too grim, I do have a lot of questions about why one might be born at this time in the universe (aka what can be done?), and why human existence seems to be, in parts, destructive, and also maybe selfishly, where are all the places that I feel moved to witness on earth, as it is now. So the question there is kind of: what will become?
^ah… the Garden of Earthly Delights… Bosch rly did it.
-Some classics: do I understand money/ my career is confusing/ am I a grown-up / am I reading enough/ where is the best city or town to live in / will I grow another inch (this one I always hold out hope!) / is it bad that I don’t really take vitamins / how often must one go to the dentist and are my teeth yellowing / how am I different than I was this time last year ? I pray I have only appreciated with time.
- Honestly, Kim and Kanye! Will they get back together? I kind of think yes and also that Pete will be friends with them still and maybe they all go to space. Such a perfect encapsulation of popular culture that is stupid until you realize that it possesses profound intricacy and potential for consequence. If you haven’t read MJ Corey’s work on the Kardashians, I highly recommend, it’s kind of been blowing my mind. Also will the Julia Fox eye make-up situation become a trend? Call me pedestrian, but I simply hope not!
-Is it Spring yet? Will Spring be gentle and fun? I really hope so. Will I have allergies? If so, can I find a way not to scratch my little corneas when they itch? One must see clearly, after all.
Most of these questions, even when I’m in their meaningless little throws, remind me a lot of one of my favorite books, How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti. One of the only books with the perfect title.
I don’t have much to say about these questions, other than that letting them out seems like a fine thing to do, so that they can float in the air for awhile. Honestly, what a gift to have time to ask questions, to examine them, to consider oneself amidst it all, and then to think of new ones as one continues to walk through life. Ultimately, they end up leading me back to one of my favorite poems, one that my dad showed me, one that I like to read out loud, and one that always works.
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.