Newness
Fragments
January came with a first time for me, the first month of a new year, yes, but it was the first time I take m children on holiday, alone, without their other parent, without a friend to support. In fact, I was away for work, I had my older child miss a couple of days of school and we boarded a plane to Aswan, Egypt. It was my daughter’s first time flying.
It wasn’t easy. It was sometimes even embarrassing — with my kids storming into the room as we debriefed, sometimes it was funny — like when I found out my daughter stole popsicles from the kitchen freezer and sat on the stairs savoring them.
It was scary at times as well. Like when someone knocked on my door because I hadn’t been returning their calls. That person, I had no relationship with and I had to lock the door to feel safe. I had to enlist the help of people I barely know and ask for advice, for help.
But because I did, I also made a new friend. Or two, or many.
Friends who challenged my go, go, go tendency. I can do this, I can carry this alone, I can do without receiving because there’s not much to be received anyway.
What assumptions.
I made friends with an island on the Nile, too.
What if I could allow solar, masculine force to not be harmful, to evolve beyond being penetrative and disruptive? What if I can attune tot he magic in photosynthesis? The sunlight transforming into carbon is all things magic and I think I have overlooked this for so long. Sunlight doesn’t refuse to shine on a person whose behavior is subpar and chlorophyl doesn’t refuse to transform sunlight that shines on countries ruled by tyrants.
But when sunlight and chlorophyl meet, nourishment is created for the entire Earth. Not just humans, not just me, everyone. All beings.
What if I am chlorophyl that has been trying to intellectualize the process of photosynthesis and hence robbing it, stripping it off of its magic, stealing the wonder from the entire process?
January has ended and here we are, almost a week into February already. You can miss home when you’re away from home but how do you remedy missing a home when you’re supposedly home?
I think I’m ready to finally admit that I don’t know how to make a home, my children don’t like spending time in our house, well, unless they’re coloring or making crafts. Our furniture is falling apart, pillow covers fraying, we have two towels, two bed frames with no mattresses, and I think I’m finally ready to admit my failures in that front.
You see, the same sun shines on us all and yet it is not the same cloud that floats above us. The waters change and so do we, maybe we truly are changed by the waters we drink from, maybe it is true that the Nile brings you back to it. The Nile chooses who gets to come back and I am not sure what it feels like to be chosen by such a great being. Yes, water has memory.
I just apologized to a friend for feeling overwhelmed by my yearning. I feel thankful to have friends who I can tell that to — who would see my yearning for the weight and shape of it, as a valid reason to withdraw because I cannot go on in that way. I cannot lift it alone and it’s hard. It’s heavy and I am sure we are meant to hold it together.
But these friends are far and wide, yes, but mostly far. Too far, in fact. Dispersed like dandelions and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing but on days when I want to be seen, heard and witnessed in my yearning, it is very, very lonely.
I thought my yearning was for newness and hence the title of this piece but I guess my yearning is for familiarity — to be known by someone, by a few, perhaps, in all my unfolding and becoming. To be known through the unfolding and becoming.
To be able to say that you need someone, to feel safe enough in the vulnerability to actually need someone, to accept and acknowledge it.
so good to read your words again