A Home in My Life

Dear Friends,

Following a period of reflection, writing often flows from my fingertips, nearly fully formed as it comes. Other times, like right now, every word is laboriously chiseled from some stone where it has been trapped. My thoughts are a thousand cats that won’t be herded. But this is what I’ve got today.

flowers in Maine

In responding to my last post here, a couple of friends mentioned the television show The Bear and its theme of “Every Second Counts.” I went back and rewatched a favorite episode of The Bear, “Forks,” Season 2, episode 7, which shows the origin of this phrase in a restaurant kitchen.

In the show, “Every Second Counts” is a motto of a high paced kitchen, and it is interpreted differently by different characters. (There is a great essay exploring this in the Los Angeles Review of Books here.) On the one hand, time is limited and “every second counts” reflects the scarcity of time, the pressure and necessity to use every second wisely. On the other hand, “every second counts” recognizes the abundance of time – in any time period there are abundant seconds and opportunities to inhabit them. Time is always renewing itself.

Both interpretations are true, and I have cycled between them. I have often felt the tyranny of the scarcity of time and the pressure to make every second count. What has been surprising to me is that since I was diagnosed with a cancer that will almost certainly shorten my life, I have felt a certain liberation from this scarcity. Ironically, my understanding that my time is more limited than I’d expected makes the seconds feel abundant.

Why? I think it is because I inhabit my life in a different way post-diagnosis. I am learning to sink into seconds, into moments, not just because they are limited, but because they are beautiful.

The tenor of these times can quickly lead us towards a frantic understanding of time. We live at an urgent moment, when the future of humanity writ large, and of our individual humanity is imperiled. I don’t think I need to list all the ways that this is true, for you to feel the weight of this moment. We all need to engage with the work of transformation in the ways that are right for us. There are many ways to participate in revolutionary love. And, at least for me, the source of that revolutionary love is not found in scarcity, but in abundance.

What is the well of abundance for me? It has become my very ordinary life.

In a recent interview, Suleika Jaouad was asked, how one lives with an everyday, every-hour awareness of a time-limited future. She responded, “For me, it means building a home in my life right now.”

By building a home in my life now, by inhabiting the moments, I find the source of healing.

Recently my wife and I vacationed along the coast of New England in beautiful places with beautiful people. I connected with friends of nearly 40 years (who I haven’t seen in 30) and we traced the lines of our lives since we last saw each other. I grounded myself with lifelong friends who I see every year, who have walked me through life, who remind me of who I am. I visited with family who I haven’t seen in too long and we told stories of memories and shared interests.

We walked and floated, waded in a tidal river and in the ocean. We picked blueberries and watched cardinals and robins do the same, while rabbits came through to glean dropped fruit on soft humid mornings. We drank countless cups of coffee and tea, glasses of rosé and sparkling water, donning caftans a la Golden Girls. We had my birthday dinner followed by a walk home giggling through a thunder and lightning storm and arrived drenched and happy.  We laughed til we cried and our sides ached. We ate a shared birthday cake with my uncle. We walked and traveled along the rocky jagged coast on lots of beautiful days and enjoyed the rainy ones too. We wandered through Boston neighborhoods, catching up with each other as we walked, and even found really good vegan ice cream and a great vegan breakfast (a particular rarity for vegans).

pre and post drenching on my birthday

At home, it is very much the same without the beautiful coastline and the humidity.  Time with old and new friends, with family, fresh peaches and heirloom tomatoes, watching birds and tending the garden, playing with color at the painting table, and yes, zoom calls for election organizing.

This well of life is full of thousands of moments, of seconds to be savored, of healing. As a bonus, when I am healed, I am more able to engage in acts of healing, of revolutionary love.

I am building a home in my life. Right now. And it is a wonderful place to dwell. I hope that you, too, are building a home in your life, full of an abundance of moments.

Thanks for being here. Please share this with folks who would be interested.

Lots of love to you,

Maija

Two songs this week:

The first is Echoes by Dar Williams celebrating the ways our ordinary lives are connected.

The second is The Poetry of Earth (Geophony) a new piece by Max Richter which I think could be a general song or record for Healing Happens. It is from his new record In a Landscape which releases on September 5. “It is a record about reconciling polarities, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living…” (from Spotify, emphasis mine) This seems like just what we are trying to explore here: the big questions and the quiet pleasures of living.

The complete Healing Happens playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

Healing Happens on Spotify

Healing Happens on Apple Music