Telling old stories because we don’t have new ones yet
I’m squarely (circularly?) in that swirl of old stuff eroding, new stuff yet to reveal itself. It’s happening everywhere in the world, and our individual lives are echoing it. I’ve written and talked about it so much lately that I don’t feel like going back over it—which is exactly the point of what I want to write about today.
I so often find myself having transformative conversations with astoundingly wise, steady, generous humans who adore and want to support me. (And, ya know, likewise.)
These days, when I have the floor in these conversations—when it’s my turn to talk about anything, to express anything, to solve anything with the help of these hugely resourced souls—I’ve found myself rehashing stuff that is tired to my ears. Topics like my woes and stuckness around money, even though that is changing (not the money itself, but rather my attitudes around it, the support I’m getting to address it). Reciting lyrics about purpose, wondering if I’m helping folks the best way I can.
Dry & dusty
Even as I type out these topics I can feel the husks that they are. Spoken, they feel like speeches, like scripts, right down to the words and sentences and breaths between them, the gestures I make in the telling. And as soon as my gorgeous, caring, resourced friends inevitably set about trying to support me, I quickly see (if I hadn’t already) that it isn’t a problem that needs solving, and that I’ve invited my pals into sort of a dead space.
I see that I’ve been dwelling on these talking points because otherwise I would have no words to talk about the state I’m actually in, where the questions have been spoken, help has been called in, and it’s all now existing as goo in the chrysalis: unformed, unknown, mysterious, wordless. Things are busy changing below my conscious awareness, and for now, there’s nothing more to say.
There is a very particular feeling to rehashing what is old. It feels dry, like I’m sifting through ash, and though my generous friends are very willing to do this with me, I feel the juice go out of the conversation.
Expressing from the gooier places
Maybe this is why poetry, why art. Because we can only spin linear narratives for so long before they become overworked and threadbare. There are times to live more in possibility (or, scarier and cooler, unknown) rather than the ‘reality’ that has held us for a time.
We can still create from those gooier places. We can still express.
We can talk about dreams. I can tell you how I’ve been meeting my birthfather in mine. I never met him in 3D; we were ships in the night on this plane, sadly, though I have been absorbed by his kids and grandkids and a palace of family has built up around me like I’m in some sort of heavenly virtual reality.
I can tell you how glad and terrified I am that soon I’ll be in a place where all there is is the present moment and one’s thoughts and feelings and physicality for kilometers and hours. In fact as you read this, it’s where I am.
I can tell you about the colors of the leaves outside - the ombre of the changing seasons. How it feels to do Tai Chi movements with relaxed hands after 3 years of exerting unnecessary effort, and how much that alone has taught me.
Our lives aren’t movie plots
Though they are juicy and intriguing, we don’t always need to tell stories of struggle. In fact we shouldn’t, especially if they’re no longer true. That’s what perpetuates old narratives; keeps them alive across years, decades, lifetimes. Keeps us stuck.
We also don’t have to be writing, expressing, even speaking all the time. We really, really don’t. We can—we must!—give ourselves periods of space, silence, intake rather than output. Rest. Set the pot to simmer and go read a book, watch a movie. There’s plenty of struggle in those usually. In the northern hemisphere this is actually a great time of year for that.
What about you?
Is there something you’ve been struggling to solve that perhaps just needs to simmer? Can you trust that that is happening? How can you tell what is old versus what is current—not in the world, not in the headlines, but in you?
As always, your thoughts and full-on pieces are invited in the comments here. If you need a prompt, grab a line from the poem below (that literally just landed in my inbox as I was writing this piece!), set a timer for 8 minutes, and see what comes through.
No answer
Lia Purpura
No answer but stance,
no solving but moving
sideways, and
showing.
Not finishing
ministering.
Maintenance not construction.
Unwinding, bewildering
the day’s tightness,
the overfilled hours.
No flinching,
fledging,
wings untacked,
moments unstacking,
stormraising, pollensifting,
and free now,
the stories unworded
and given,
not wielded.
