Solstice
we dove, we've entered, we are here
Dear Friends,
Electric blue, like Windex. That’s been the color of the sky, the air, the opaque glass-topped ocean. But only in the mornings, briefly. It’s before the sunrise, somewhere between 7:25am and 7:45am, that I stand at my windows and watch the color brighten and fade.
This morning, though, it’s all gray. Murky fog has settled into the crevices of buildings and machinery. A train announces itself only by sound. Beyond the spindly branches of the trees outside my windows, few lights sparkle. It’s the shortest day of the year.
Once, on winter solstice, I went to an art park outside of Syracuse, New York with a friend. We brought a giant bundle of dead things to burn. We walked in circles on the dead grass, chanting incantation I can’t remember. Something about letting go. The stars beeped and bopped above us. It was cold and the smoke of the burning things mingled with the fog of our exhales.
Today I’m working. Maybe I’ll be able to escape to a park for a little ritual, but it’s doubtful. I’m okay with that. I can move through the day with intention. I can feel a sense of gratitude that I’ve navigated our darkest season, autumn, though here in Seattle (and elsewhere) it can feel as if it gets darker after solstice, not lighter. We’ve made it to the darkest day, and we’ll make it here again, if we’re lucky.
I am working on being okay with darkness.
On Friday I chatted with my therapist about the tiny bouts of dissociation I sometimes have— remnants from a time when dissociation was my natural state. How is it that one can be overwhelmed and not know it? I’ve been overwhelmed. Nannying a little too much because I want the extra money. Pressuring myself to do everything, all at once. Turning away from challenging feelings like anger and sadness.
There is something in me that says I must be something, rather than simply be.
If you look closely at this picture you can see a smattering of Bufflehead ducks on the water. Being.
A memory; maybe eleven or twelve years ago. I had recently moved back to Denver from Austin, TX, after leaving an abusive partner, and was staying in an insect-filled basement, living in a house full of bike messengers. They were my friends, but somehow it felt strange coming back to them. Most nights we did coke and drank. I got a job at a local Italian chain as a waitress but lost it when I had more than one no-call no-show. Fuck em, my roommate said. He was in his forties, an OG messenger. It was his house.
I had this book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. After my coke binges I’d always wake up with a familiar existential annihilation. I got into the habit of coming upstairs and drinking coffee while I read the book and wrote down pertinent sayings on a bunch of notecards (I’ve always loved notecards).
In the book, successful people were sifted out from “failures.” People who couldn’t get their shit together. It’s very bootstrappy. One morning my older roommate came into the kitchen and watched me diligently writing down notes (for a taste, a quote I loved was “Look at the word responsibility—“response-ability”—the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior.”).
Why are you always trying to be better, my roommate asked, not waiting for an answer. You’re good.
You’re good.
I’d spent most of my life reading self-help books, trying to reach a place of being that was beyond what I figured was my current potential, outside of myself. I’d grown up being told I was a piece of shit, and I believed it.
It wasn’t much later that I found a healthier living situation and began going to therapy. I still remember the moment in my therapists office when I told her: I’m a bad person. There’s something wrong with me. She shook her head. It’s taken me a long, long time and a lot of work to move past that belief.
When I feel overwhelmed, and neglect myself, those belief systems can creep in imperceptibly, initially innocuous. An urge to look different that I do naturally. The idea that I need a partner to feel whole and be loved. The thoughts escalate into criticisms, and soon enough I’m looking at myself from the outside, picking myself apart.
The thing is, circumstances, conditions, and conditioning do affect our behavior. They affect who we are and who we think we can become. While it isn’t productive to remain forever a victim, we do need to muddle through feelings of victimhood sometimes, peeling away layers, digging through the trash of what we’ve been told we are and who we’ve been told we can be until we find a light that is undeniable.
That light never goes out, but we can turn away from it.
Let that light warm you this winter.
If there’s a small ritual you can do today so you can let go of some of the ways you make yourself feel somehow inadequate, do it. Even if it’s just a walk around the block. Feel the wind. The darkness. Let something disappear.
Books:
I recently finished A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet. She’s written so many books and yet this is the first I’ve read. It was recently chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by the NY Times. I found it thoroughly engrossing. The story is narrated by a young teenage girl (though we’re not sure of her age). Narratively, it follows a well-worn path: things are normal, and then slowly they are very not normal. The main characters are people under eighteen- their parents are peripheral, unhinged and diluted with alcohol. First there’s a natural disaster, then the books veers into climate apocalypse. The prose is sparse and undecorated, but the content is full of depth.
I’m currently reading Yxta Maya Murray’s book of stories called The World Doesn’t Work That Way, but It Could. It’s incredibly current. For some reason, it feels strange for me to read books that involve Donald Trump and the politics surrounding his presidency, as if it’s all just happened, but Murray explores the past four years (and before) with incredible wit and precise prose. In one story, the child of migrant workers who died of exposure to pesticides ends up working for Dow Chemical; in another, a nurse goes to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, only to find herself questioning her motives and impact. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about this book, because it reads as vital to the current moment, and the writing reminds me of George Saunders. Each character is exploring the morality of their actions. Murray is a lawyer, and includes legal documents in the stories themselves.
On Wednesday I’m driving three hours to hide myself deep in the Olympic Forest for six days. I’ll be staying in a rustic cabin at a state park. I can’t wait to be amongst the big trees and rain and moss. I’m not sure I’ll have internet there, but if I can, I’ll be sending my Monday dispatch from there next week.
Some housekeeping: This newsletter will now be released every Monday. On January 1st, I am leaving social media for a long while. You sharing and talking about this newsletter would mean so much to me, if you’re inclined. There will eventually be a paid tier, but the Monday newsletter will always remain the same, and free. Let me know if you have any ideas/wants/needs around my paid programming. I’ll be setting my monthly price at around $2.
You can always reply to these newsletters, and I will write you back. It might take me a little while to respond, but be assured that I’ve gotten your message and am thinking about it, and you.
On New Year’s Eve I’ll be having a little Zoom writing session and guided meditation. Register here.
With massive love,
Stacy