Inconvenient needs
... and being willing to practice meeting them
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A song I’m loving:
I have just two reminders and a poem to share today:
When you are sick, or exhausted, or not feeling well, your tendency might be to push through and show up anyway, even if it is at the detriment of yourself and what you need. And yes, sometimes we need to do that for various reasons. Yet I want to remind you that when you have a choice, it’s okay to not do that — it’s okay to actually put your own body and self first when you need you.
I have been sick for a few days, and I need myself, so I am following my own ethos by not laying in bed and attempting to write a whole new Sunday Letter this week — because writing with a pounding head and the inability to breath out of my nose just doesn’t sound nourishing for anyone.
For now, here’s a poem I wrote last week and a collection of links I collected throughout the week, before my body told me I needed to rest, replenish, restore. May you find ways to do the same, even when it requires you to go against your plans, your schedule, your commitments. Sometimes, committing to our inconvenient needs in defiance of our plans and routines is the greatest act of care we can offer ourselves.
Take care, everyone — more next week.
And cue my husband laughing at the fact that here I am, still sending out some small-yet-real form of a newsletter. It’s all practice, right?
I have a history of running and being at a standstill simultaneously,
itching with desperation to get to some other place,
to some other version of me who has already done The Thing,
already gotten The Lesson, already embodied The Wisdom,
already Made It, who is already “There”, yet at a standstill
because being anywhere or anyone else is impossible.
I’ve sprinted and fallen over exhausted, defeated
by the reality that there is no “there”.
There is only Here. There is only This Body.
There is only this life, the one I have now, the one
I am in, the version of myself that exists
as I take this breath, as I type this word.
There is only this life, with
all of its murky crevices and dusty bits,
all of its unfinished works of art and unchecked boxes,
its grief and silent longings, its hidden parts and
the still-empty room connected to the kitchen.
There is only this — this body left with pounds
and stretched skin that were once not here,
this wrinkle above the eye and this dream not yet reached.
There is only this — this questioning, this mystery,
this reckoning with what could be but isn’t,
this practice of seeing the open-ended present as sacred
instead of something to work my way around.
There is only this — this willingness to hold
what is not yet here, to hold what I don’t yet know,
to hold my current Self with reverence instead of
captive to an unreachable different reality.
When I stray from my own knowing,
from the truth that there is nowhere and
no one else to be, the relief comes
not from figuring it out or reaching
some imaginary, all-better There,
but from remembering what is true:
The Thing, The Lesson, The Wisdom,
the Making It, the arrival to some ethereal
future where all my woes and wounds
are resolved, where I’m finally some
idealized version of myself,
isn’t the answer.
The answer is trusting I can meet myself
where I am, as I am, with arms held wide.
That I can let this, let here, be what it needs to be.
That I can stop solving and practice just living.
That just living includes the boring, uncertain
moments in-between, includes quietly massaging
my own tired hands, includes the grieving and eating
the same dinner three nights in a row as a way
of making one less decision, the inconsistent rituals
and the not knowing — includes all of it.
There is no there.
There is only here.
And here isn’t something to resolve;
it’s something to allow.
Soon, everything will be different.
And for now, here I am. Here I am.
△ "Embracing disappointment is far more healthy than begrudging another writer for their success"
△ On not letting ambition ruin your life
△ Meditation, Psychedelics, and Mortality
△ Very excited about this record and this book and this book
△ Enrolling in a writing workshop with one of my most beloved teachers-from-afar
△ Deep relationships are key to well-being
△ This stunning deck from my luminous friend, Sahar Martinez
△ I have been loving this book and Oliver’s newsletter, The Imperfectionist
△ Dancing with my daughter in the kitchen to this song
△ Reminders to self — and to you, if you need it:
And so grateful to have my work shared in Holly’s recent newsletter and in Fanny’s recent newsletter, both of which are incredible and luminous in their own ways.
With care,
Lisa
Oh my goodness that Vogue article. Two ideas literally made me shout “YES” at my laptop as I was reading: 1) that we might not want to have it all, and 2) that making a huge change like a career change does not have to be viewed as a failure.
For me, not wanting to have children, has almost always been met with confusion. I think bigger than peoples’ horror at a woman who does not desire children, is their horror when someone has set limits on their own striving. Someone who says: “I have enough. I have done enough. I have gotten what I can from this experience and it is time to move on.” are a little bit jaw-dropping to people who cannot fathom an existence sans hamster wheel. Instead of congratulating someone for stepping off the wheel, we end up—to bring in the themes of the other piece—feeling disappointed (I would say resentful but that really just means disappointment doesn’t it?). How dare they give up on unhealthy striving when I see no way of giving up on unhealthy striving?! And what do we do sometimes when met with discomfort? We resort to making it a “them” problem: they failed, they gave up, they are weak and unworthy. I think for some people, my decision not to have children makes them painfully aware of all the tasks they have unwittingly accepted as necessary or inevitable, when in fact some of them are optional. I was met with a similar understandable and perplexing perspective from professors in grad school: but we had to sacrifice our mental health to get our degrees, so why shouldn’t you have to sacrifice your mental health to get yours? (Said the people educated up to their eyeballs in systemic oppression…).
People balk at someone who is so aware of the systems they are caught up in that they occasionally opt out of acting from a place of optics and opt in to living. When I left my former career so many co-workers said: I wish I could do what you’re doing. And while there are very real circumstances (financial, familial care obligations, etcetera) that may impact the ease with which someone can make a change, for the most part I wanted to say: Why aren’t you doing what I’m doing? It was easier, in this case kindly, to see me as an exception, someone doing something extraordinary (and therefore unattainable) so that they could go on denying their own disappointment with how their career had turned out. Those with less generous interpretations of behaviour made a similar pivot in the opposite direction: how could you throw away all those hard years of work you put in? (As if any experience is not just simply life experience which will prepare you for, you know, life? Maybe it comes as a by-product from resume writing, but what is our insatiable urge to classify something as work experience rather than just experience period?). Very few people simply said: I am proud of you for making a change that feels right for you. So let it be said to anyone who has made a big and life-affirming change and been met with others’ disappointment (oops I mean disapproval): I am proud of you for making a change that feels right for you. I am proud of you for not wanting it all.
Thank you, Lisa, for the sparks. Hope you don't mind me posting the resulting fire.
“There is no there.
There is only here.
And here isn’t something to resolve;
it’s something to allow.”
Thank you for that reminder.
Oftentimes I find myself thinking I should be “there.” As if there is an arrival point where I’m completely healed or able to enforce boundaries perfectly or maybe in a near-constant state of peace. I’m thankful for support systems reminding me it’s all practice, and to trust the process.
Feel better soon!