Things I Know, Even When I'm Quiet: A Litany

You'll never catch me saying that I know something until I've applied it somehow and proven to myself that it's probably true. Before that, it's simply secondhand information –– likely valuable if it came from a trustworthy source, but not absolutely. 

And even once something makes it into my mental "I know this" file, I still don't necessarily shout it right out for the world to hear. Instead, I let these things settle into my gut and grow smooth, like rocks at the bottom of a riverbed. 

No one knows they're there, but they still serve a sort of quiet purpose. They're anchors that keep me grounded in a saner version of the world where I always know what's real, even if no one else around me does. Silence doesn't make those things any less true. 

I know when someone is trying to manage me with compliments. I know when they’re dancing a stilted jig around the perimeter of a truth they don’t want to articulate. I know when someone's surprised (and more than a little bothered) that I don't fit comfortably into whatever labeled box they've decided to place me in. 

I register these things before I smile and say something polite –– not because I feel polite, but because I know it's expected of me and need to buy time while I wait for the next conversational exit. 

I know what it feels like to walk into a room and read the people in it before a single word is said. The tone of the air, the undercurrents of tension and the way tension always smells like carrots. Perhaps even unspoken resentment. I used to think everyone did this –– figured out the lay of the land before deciding how to proceed by scanning the energy in question. But then I realized almost no one does, except other people who simply don't mention it. 

I also learned that some people hate that this is something I can (and will) do. They don't think they should have to pass a vibe check before I'll interact with them.

I know what burnout feels like, not just physically but spiritually — the ache of having too many people need things from you while you’re scraping the bottom of your own well. I know the hollow feeling that comes when you're doing something that should be heartfelt out of obligation instead of devotion. 

What I Found at the Edge of the Map

One of the biggest myths we're sold when we're all still young and stupid is that life is a straight-shot journey from Point A to Point B. All you have to do is follow the totally real life map we're presented with, and everything will turn out just peachy.

Do this, then that. Be this, then become that. Follow the signs. Never stray. And if you do everything exactly right, you’ll reach your destination right on time. Oh, and there will be a trophy and a pizza party waiting for you when you arrive, of course.

But what no one tells you is this. The destination point keeps moving, which hardly matters, because no one ever clarifies where you're supposed to be going in the first place. The map spontaneously redraws itself the moment you think you understand it. 

And the edges? You eventually find out that they don’t mark the end of anything. They mark another big, fat, blank beginning you didn’t know to expect, and it's even more ambiguous and vague than the last.

I spent an embarrassingly large chunk of my one life chasing the idea of “arriving.” At what, I don't exactly know, although I assume it had something to do with success, love, healing, wholeness –– the four horsemen of the well-adjusted. I thought that if I just kept going, I’d eventually reach a place where things made sense. But that never happened. 

What did happen were curveballs. Detours. Periods of standing still so long that I forgot I was even on a journey in the first place. Eventually, I thought I'd reached the end of the map. But it didn't look or feel anything like fulfillment, and there sure as shit wasn't a pizza party waiting for me. It looked like a blank, white page with nothing else on it. 

I sat with that blankness for a very long time, because I didn't know what else to do. And I think that's when I realized the map wasn't ever meant to be the whole plan. It was a set of training wheels made of inherited ideas, social constructs that really never fit me, and a hefty pinch of generational trauma thrown in for good measure. If you're dealing with something similar right now, this is what I want you to know.

1. The end is rarely the literal end

Certain life events –– divorces, job losses, etc. –– can feel like the end of the world, because they're just that devastating. But they're also the endings of chapters in your life story, not the whole damn book, regardless of how they may feel at the time. In some cases, they might also mark the end of how you pictured your life playing out. 

Realizing that absolutely sucks, so it's understandable if you need to mourn for a while. Let yourself be angry or sad. But know that life also has a way of sneaking in new possibilities when we’re not looking. Releasing the idea of what should have happened (but couldn't for whatever reason) makes space for what can happen now.

Courage: A Reading in Four Parts

Over the past couple of months, I've been focusing on reclaiming a few habits I've fallen away from over the years. One of those is a daily divination pull from one of my tarot decks, oracle decks, or rune sets –– occasionally a pull each from more than one, depending on what the vibe of the day is like.

Sometimes the pulls bring things up for consideration that I might not actively be thinking about otherwise. Today's overall theme turned out to be all about reclaiming lost parts of your identity and stepping into the life you know you deserve.

But knowing you deserve something and believing you'll actually get it are two different animals. Especially when you didn't grow up feeling safe, accepted, or loved with any real consistency. I personally learned that I'm only worthy of those things when I'm "going places" and accomplishing circles around everyone else. It's taking me all 49 years of my life so far to even start unlearning it properly.

I'm getting there, though. And sometimes the universe backs me up with exactly the kind of encouragement I need on a given day. Today felt like one of those days.

The Eye

Some forces watch us long before we know how to watch back. The way The Eye watches shouldn't trigger suspicion or fear, but rather awareness. The kind that sees beneath the surface and into the marrow of what something (or who someone) is. 

Pulling The Eye today made me feel seen. Not by people, but by something older and a whole heck of a lot wiser than I am. A presence that knows the threads I carry, even when I forget them myself. The Eye watches not to punish, but to protect. To remember on your behalf until you are strong enough to remember on your own.

A Soft Time Machine: Reflections on the Movies We Love

Garden State (2004) - Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

I think movies are like portals to a lot of us when we're children –– opportunities to step out of our little-kid lives with all their frustrating limitations for a moment and explore the world on a larger scale. Then we get older. We acquire adult worries and responsibilities. Society convinces us that escaping into our imaginations this way should be less of a priority. And we forget.

For some reason, I never quite made that tradition the way I was "supposed to."

Yes, I'm an adult. Despite deliberately avoiding certain types of responsibility, I've still managed to accumulate my due share with big, heavy adult-level worries to match. But I never stopped seeing movies as magic gateways to another version of the world that often made more sense to me than the real one did.

Garden State is one of many movies I feel that way about as a middle-aged adult, and I just so happen to have it on in the background as I write this. Like a lot of my fellow Gen Xers, I first saw this film in my 20s and processed it a certain way.

That version of me was still just getting started on her adult life. She was still the type of person who could feel entirely original again by doing something weird, spontaneous, and random. But she also wanted to be the type of woman someone would dive into a pool for, despite not knowing how to swim. 

I also recall relating to the feeling of gazing into an infinite abyss on a rainy day with a long, sprawling future ahead of me that was still nothing but a question mark. I loved knowing that you never know what's at the bottom of such an abyss. It could be anything, including something amazing that you haven't even dreamed about yet.

I notice different things about the film as a full-grown adult who's only a sneeze away from 50 at this point. My future isn't much of a question mark anymore, although that may just be part of the illusion that comes with "getting old." But I still relate to the idea of wanting something meaningful that you can't quite define, even if you don't have a name for it or know how to ask for it. 

Apparently, that's not something you ever outgrow. It just changes shape while staying two steps ahead of you. One way stories can grow and evolve with you, continuing to meet you where you are, no matter how old you become.

The Court of the Wild Chord

They arrived without fanfare, though they were dressed for it. One by one, they emerged from the folds of the early morning into my misty garden. Creatures of fur, claw, tusk, and hoof. Each robed in velvet and brocade, each carrying a violin that hummed with more than music.

I don't know where they came from. I'd never met them before, but some part of me recognized them all the same. 

Thorne, the Boar, smelled of smoke, freshly turned earth, and secret things that only grow at night. His hooves left glyphs and symbols in the soil as he searched for a spot to make himself comfortable. The melody he played pulsed with survival, a song built from bone memory and bitter root. 

He played what must always be remembered.

Virella, the Wolf, moved like moonlight through a locked room. His mournful eyes glowed with the images of secret maps. They were maps of places I’ve only seen in dreams and misremembered moments from the past. His music had no true beginning, no end. It was best described as a misty, winding trail of breath and instinct. 

He played what must always be followed.

Halbard, the Bear, bowed gracefully and low before beginning. His coat was heavy with charms. His fingers, thick but graceful, drew forth aching laments wrapped in subtle warmth. His was the music of lost things that are desperately missed once they're gone, as well as those we've forgotten to keep remembering at some point along the way. It was the music of grief.

He played what must be respectfully mourned.

Malgore, the Goat, did not bow at all. Instead, he smirked before glancing into the four corners of the garden, as if to make sure the entire morning was listening. And then he played something that turned the air inside out. It was a vaguely dissonant melody I knew and feared. A secret I hadn’t meant to keep. 

He played what must be known. Eventually, but only in due course.

None of them spoke, even to one another. And their impromptu concert was brief. Just one short but perfect piece each. Maybe the music was meant to be a gift. Perhaps a warning or even an aging mirror that could be made bright again with care and polish. 

I suppose that is for them to know and me to contemplate.

When they were done, they vanished the same way they had come. There was no drama or urgency. They didn't make a single sound more. But once they were gone, the entire space felt rearranged in a way I could not define. Sometimes I think they were reminders that even in the elegant places you're sure you've successfully tamed, a certain wildness still remains. 

That wildness makes music. And if you're wise (and very lucky), you'll listen.

* This entry is part of The Feast of the Wandering Pen, a month-long ritual that includes writing, remembering, and return to self-clarity.