Being Here Now, Wherever That Is

I’ve been going through it.

There’s not much more I’m going to say about that - this is simply not the place, and although I deeply appreciate the almost 200 of you who are here (mind-blowing, that part), some parts of life need to stay among a closer circle. 

This has made me pull away from public writing more than usual; it feels forced to sit down and write palatable little nothings when, to be honest, my brain is fully in the realm of highly unpalatable giant somethings. It makes most things I can think to write here feel dishonest. I’m not in the business of writing what isn’t true, and I don’t want to be. Here, in this space, we’re going to dwell on nuggets of the truth.

Here’s something true: winter is ending. Very slowly but surely, it’s winding down and spring is pushing ever-so-slightly through. Usually, I spend February in a state of miserable impatience, but this year, I’m realizing that I haven’t found the winter quite as insufferable as I expected to. When I moved away from New England in 2017, I was desperate to get away from the winter. But after years in the boreal rainforest of Seattle, I find myself taking comfort in the variability of the days here. No, I don’t like a 20 degree day that feels like an 8 degree day, but it makes me feel alive and aware in a way that quiets my mind.

I’m not sure I could be truly happy in a place without a full range of seasons. I need the four seasons in my life because they bring constant reminders to be present. The subtle shifts in the world every day, like the way the ground feels just a tiny bit softer underfoot this morning than it did yesterday, remind me to keep my eyes wide open. 

It’s been a tough time for presence. While my upcoming wedding pulls part of my brain ever-forward into the future, the cold fingers of past pain and present trauma triggers yank the other part into the realm of what was. What is left for me to be present with? Not a lot, it turns out. My head is buried in webs of past and future that I can’t stop trying to untangle. I walk on the soft soil and notice almost nothing. This is no way to live, so I’ve assigned myself the task of doing what I can to live differently.

Photo by Mykola/Kolya Korzh on Unsplash

In this quest to get presence back, I’ve remembered Eckhart Tolle (presence’s favorite white guy, we could say) and his idea that every human being has a “Pain Body”, an “energy field of old but still very-much-alive emotion that lives in almost every human being.” I think of the Pain Body as the shadow of trauma and hurt that follows us through our lives. 

Not everyone interacts with this shadow in the same way. There are some people - maybe you know this on a cellular level - who derive their sense of self from their pain. They lean into it heavily because they link their identities to it directly. They believe they are their pain, at least in part. Without pain, they don’t know who they are.

I know a lot of these people very well, and also, I have been one of them for a long time. Many times, I’ve used my own pain as a way for me to define myself, to make up statements about who I can and cannot be, what I can and cannot do. The uncomfortable truth is that for a long time, I’ve leaned on what I’ve been through in my life to create an easy sense of identity.

I think that a lot of people, myself included, have the tendency to use identification with their Pain Body as an excuse not to change. “This is what happened to me,” we say. “There’s nothing I can do about it - it’s just who I am.”

The thing about pain, particularly mental pain, is that it keeps us stuck in places that are not the present. Anxiety and stress happen when we can’t get our minds out of the future. Resentment and regret happen when we can’t get our minds out of the past. The common denominator: life goes by without us. Joy goes by without us. Peace goes by without us.

This is an oversimplification, I know. But oversimplifications have their place, and right now in my life, simplicity is welcome. 

I’m learning that what happened to us - and, indeed, what is happening to us - doesn’t actually have to be who we are. It’s right there in the sentence, right? Happening to us. We are the indirect objects of these life sentences, not their subjects. But we confuse this grammar, and it results in a paralysis of our very being.

I don’t want to build a home out of hurt, much less a self. I’d rather just be. There are miles of ground between those two mental destinations, and I’m just starting the long walk from one to another. If you’re on this walk, or if you’ve ever been, hello. I see you. Let’s talk sometime.

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What to Eat: My eating habits have been boring lately. I’ll say it. But I have been leaning into small indulgences wherever I can, and one of my favorites is a cappuccino. Just a cappuccino. A very small one, preferably - anything over 8 ounces feels blasphemous to me. Maybe even a croissant to go with it. This is less of a “what to eat” and more of a “what to experience.” If you haven’t recently given yourself the joy of sitting alone with a cappuccino and a croissant, go ahead and give yourself some time to do so. It’s amazing how nourishing the combination of good espresso, good pastry, and good quiet can be.

On Repeat: If you know me well, you know I am a massive fan of The Japanese House, and if you know me VERY well, you know that I have a habit of returning to her 2019 album Good at Falling every year around this time - the winter/spring cusp. Some albums have distinct seasons or months for me, and that one fits perfectly into the notch between early February and late March.