Leap after leap in the dark
on unraveling from knowing
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A song I’m loving:
I have been struck by the fragility of life lately. Maybe always, but more so now: as June suddenly greets us, as uncertainty looms, as parents age and the world seems to become more unstable by the day, as my daughter leaves a version of herself behind just as I start knowing it, as spring’s freshness morphs into summer’s heat, as illusions become revealed, as a mama goose gathers her tiny yellow goslings in the nearby marsh, as dusk closes each day we’ll never get back.
There have been many seasons of life where grasping at certainty, control, and Knowing felt like the most soothing balm to the unknown, to the fragility. I’ve noticed these tendencies rising lately: desperately trying to think my way to an answer — parts of me insistent on Figuring It Out — looking everywhere for ways I can introduce more clarity, more routine, more predictability, more certainty into my day-to-day life. Bless these well-worn tendencies and the good place they grew from. In some ways, they are wildly helpful; knowing what I’m going to eat, what outfit I’ll wear the next day, when I’ll go for a walk, when I’ll write this letter, all little sources of knowing that are grounding for the body.
Yet I have to keep a close eye on when I’m trying to alleviate the unknown completely, when I’m running from the inevitable groundlessness of being alive. I have to pay close attention to when I’m turning away from the fragility of life by trying to control how it all goes, how I’m perceived, how the future will look, how my daughter feels, how time unfolds. As the illusion of Control As Safety falls, I’m finding myself more and more drawn to finding safety right inside of the storm, right in the middle of the mystery, right alongside the sheer unpredictability of everything.
“Awakening is not a process of building ourselves up but a process of letting go. It’s a process of relaxing in the middle—the paradoxical, ambiguous middle, full of potential, full of new ways of thinking and seeing—with absolutely no money-back guarantee of what will happen next.” Pema Chodron
Not a process of building ourselves up but a process of letting go. Maybe it’s entering midlife, or watching the world’s broken structures taking their last evil gasps, or finally feeling what’s real, or my daughter slowly leaving toddlerhood and somehow becoming a kid; I’m not quite sure. But this unraveling from building myself up (usually with attempts at control) and the orientation toward letting go, shedding, releasing, dropping the striving… it feels like medicine in this time. When Pema says there is absolutely no guarantee of what will happen next, some part of me softens. The bracing turns to opening. The rigidity melts into relaxation. As much as I know this, the reminder will be needed forever.
And the beauty of allowing this fragility, this Not Knowing, this somewhat naive place we’ll always be in? Endless possibility. The opportunity to be surprised, to be nudged in directions my attempts at control could never take me, to discover something I never could have thought my way toward, to let the walls keep falling. All of it allows fragility to turn into preciousness.
“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” Agnes De Mille
Leap after leap in the dark. The preciousness of this life makes me want to keep walking in the wide unknown. To let it take me places I wasn’t sure I could go. It makes me want to stay open to being surprised, to being wrong, to being undone by change, over and over again. The preciousness of just how fragile it all is makes me want to practice compassion in layers that run deeper and deeper, rivers of care that flow to something ever-widening. It makes me want to offer grace to the parts of me who still think they know better, who are still ignorant to reality, who still fight against the fact that all of this will end someday, possibly sooner than I think. It makes me want to partner with my fear. It makes me want to keep unlearning, keep unraveling from what I thought I knew, keep shedding small ideas of Who I Am in order to let my true nature emerge more and more. It makes me want to practice being a soft place amid all the hardened places. It makes me want to see the true nature in everyone else, which sometimes looks like forgiving, like remembering the strategies of protection all of us carry around inside, like staying close to love in every moment I can.
My daughter often looks at me when I’m seeing something beautiful or moving. She says, “are those happy tears, mama?” I cry easily at the sight of a cute dog, or an old couple holding hands crossing the street, or a song, or some unexpected brightness. It’s happening more and more lately, right alongside the unraveling of control, right alongside the opening to the unavoidable mystery. Happy tears feel like my body’s way of acknowledging the preciousness of life — like a way of really letting it all in. I want to let it all in. It hurts. It heals. It’s painful. It’s magical. Much of it, I will never know. I want to keep not knowing. May we all find our own paths toward opening to the unknown, all it holds, all it could bring.
Thank you, as always, for being here — and happy pride month <3
△ A tender conversation I had with Jennifer England on Tension of Emergence
△ Ocean Vuong on Sufjan Stevens
△ Weeping while reading this stunning book
△ On grief, awe, and being alive (NYT)
△ A slice of both/and preciousness on film -
With care,
Lisa
Your mention of "happy tears" really made me smile, and yes, I get them too! It’s this overwhelming mix of joy and maybe a little bit of sadness, right? It’s like the beauty of something cracks you open just enough for the emotions to spill out. I often think of them as a physical manifestation of gratitude and pure awareness. Like your body is saying, "Yes, this. This is what it means to be alive and feeling." It’s such a tender and vulnerable thing, those happy tears, and a good sign that we’re truly present and open to whatever life throws our way.
I resonate with so much of this, it seems it's in the air right now (maybe always) - how to "relax in the middle", to open inside the not knowing... thank you for adding your words and honesty and imagery to this experience! It is helpful.