Housed in the same body
on the grief and the gift of it all
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A song I’m loving:
I often find myself pulled by scenes of light amongst dark — sunshine pouring through a window or tree canopy, a candle in a dimmed room, a neon sign at dusk, shadows on the wall, the moon. So many of my photographs include this dichotomy; it intrigues and comforts me, this light intermingling with the dark, this both-ness, this glimpse. It feels like a mirror, a remembrance, an offering of, “look at the Both that exists, even here.”
To find the gifts, even amongst grief. To stay tethered to the grief, even amongst the gifts. To be a steady witness to both, not as a method of bypassing but as a method of staying close to the heart, to the spirit of presence, to the ever-present impermanence of everything, to others, to myself.
This feels like the task I’ve been most attuned to lately, this last year, this lifetime, really: to not get swept up by the grief or by the gifts, but to know that when one seems louder, the other is always lingering close by. To know tending to one in any real, embodied way requires also tending to the other. To acknowledge what hurts in order to clear the way for what light is here, too. To stay with the light not as a denial of the pain, but as a way to practice truly facing it.
At one point in my life, this just felt like doom to me: this truth that when things are good, when joy is present, when beauty surrounds me, eventually the darkness will return in some form. Soon enough the grief will come back, tragedy will happen, something awful will require I face it. I may as well stay there to avoid disappointment, right? I may as well let the darkness swell always, rather than watching joy fade away again and again. This attempt at protection kept me from really letting the light in — it felt easier, safer, more controlled to instead keep it at bay, not fully feeling anything at all.
Why wait for the other shoe to drop when I can just leave the shoes on the floor?
We work so hard to simplify things, not knowing it tends to rob us from being with the kaleidoscope of aliveness. We work so hard to always feel okay, not knowing it tends to sever us from feeling everything. We work so hard to keep ourselves safe, not knowing it tends to keep us from fully experiencing the heights and depths of really being here. Or maybe I can only speak for myself.
In the last year especially, I’ve felt in my marrow that the most aliveness is to be found in Both. It is found in feeling it all. It is found in being with the pain and being with the beauty. It is found in being with the disgust and being with the courage. It is found in being with the shame and being with the assuredness. It is found in being with the grief and being with the gift, knowing one without the other might not ever be as real, as true, as able to seep in and change me. I’ve felt my fear around joy fading or grief returning lessen, because I’ve been learning how to truly feel them — and know they’re both here, always, whether in the foreground or the background.
The grief of bearing witness to multiple intersecting corners of devastation.
The gift of witnessing the best of humanity at the very same time.
The grief of wondering what kind of world our children will be living in.
The gift of shaping that world in my own small ways.
The grief of who I miss.
The gift of who is still here.
The grief of greed.
The gift of generosity.
The grief of being misunderstood.
The gift of knowing yourself.
The grief of separation, othering, dehumanization.
The gift of remembering interconnectedness.
The grief of impossible violence.
The gift of all the wide-open hearts.
The grief of systems of oppression.
The gift of all who are working to build something better, something more true.
The grief of knowing it could all be so much more beautiful.
The gift of remembering it can become so much more beautiful.
The grief. The gift. Can I stay with both? Can I let one inform how I tend to the other? Can I notice the ways others are also holding both? Can I let them point me in the direction of compassion, of witnessing, of Being With? Can I allow them to infuse my heart with a reminder of who and how I want to be?
We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body.
Mary Oliver wrote these words that forever point me back toward knowing we’re meant to house both — that there is no other way, whether or not we always know how to be with it. I want to try to keep being with both. I want to be guided by both. I want my sense of aliveness to include both, to include all. I think it must.
The last year has broken and rebuilt me in so many ways, most of which I haven’t written about here. I know it has done the same for so many of you in your own lives, in your own bodies. I know it continues to — that each of us keeps facing our personal and collective nightmares and dreams, somehow all at once. I sometimes feel like I say the same thing over and over in these letters, just using different words — and I think it’s because these themes are what I came here to explore, understand, be with, embody. I am practicing. Sharing it is part of that practice. And I suppose what I want to say most is this:
May you let yourself be broken and rebuilt by grief and love.
May you allow what hurts to be absorbed so you can also absorb joy.
May the light find its way into otherwise dark corners of your heart.
May you witness the care that exists right alongside the despair.
May your heart soften around the contradictions you carry.
May you find your aliveness in feeling all of it.
May you be surprised and moved by deep generosity.
May beauty infuse the most devastated parts of you.
May you hold what is yours to hold; no more, no less.
May the pain be buoyed by some unimaginable kindness.
May awe and wonder never fade, never be buried.
May your capacity to be with it all ever-widen, ever-expand.
May you hold yourself and others gently all the while.
Thank you, as always, for being here.
△ One of many places to donate toward relief after Hurricane Helene
△ Bearing witness to unfathomable loss
△ Kai Cheng Thom on transforming conflict
△ Related: “When we cannot face the irreconcilable, we often try to destroy each other instead. Our grief and rage get directed at each other, as we cannot tolerate the contradictions we live within—and which live within us. “
△ This moral clarity, this compassion, this open dialogue
△ A book currently anchoring my heart
△ You do not carry this all alone
△ A poem that feels like an embrace
△ Watching my daughter have the time of her life in a pit of corn
With care,
Lisa
“Why wait for the other shoe to drop when I can just leave the shoes on the floor?” Oof, I have definitely felt this many times in my life. Always appreciate your perspective on things Lisa, thank you 💗
I truly needed this today. Thank you. 🙏