Tethering to possibility
The day that expanded my vision of what could be
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A song I’m loving:
It was the Summer Solstice of 2015, the day I met my sister for the first time. I was 28 and flying to Idaho Falls, Idaho — the kind of place that looks exactly the way it sounds — to meet her at the airport before embarking on a weeklong road trip from Yellowstone National Park to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She had spent the four days prior driving from Pennsylvania — I had spent those four days eagerly stocking produce at Trader Joe’s and waiting for time to pass. It’s so like us, planning an epic road trip for our first time meeting in person after discovering each other on Ancestry.com a few months prior. It’s so like us, doing something you’d think only sisters who had known each other for a lifetime would do.
I remember sitting on the plane, window seat, the person next to me unfortunately smelling like hot dogs, me unable to keep my feet still. My knees kept bouncing against the grey fold-down tray so I held my Ginger Ale in my hand most of the flight. I only drink Ginger Ale on planes — especially when my stomach is queazy. I’m not sure what happens to your body when you’re on your way to meet your sister in real life, but there was some sort of energetic spark surging through me while everyone else seemed to just be moving through an ordinary day, watching You’ve Got Mail or whatever movie was playing on their little screens, no awareness of the bigness of my life that afternoon. I was used to feeling like no one else could possibly understand.
Clouds became companions as I sat in my uncomfortable seat and imagined what it would be like: would I cry? Would we feel awkward, like strangers? Would we feel familiar, like sisters? Would our virtual connection flow over into the physical realm? Would she like me? Would the grief of it all sting even more? Would I forget what loneliness felt like? Would I ever be the same again after? They were questions I never thought I’d be able to ask myself. I sat in the questions while watching the little airplane symbol on the screen ahead of me move closer and closer to our destination point — while I moved closer and closer to her.
The 1hr 41min flight felt like all the years I spent without her — like I was desperate for something to happen, waiting for an answer, longing to arrive in a place of knowing, itching for familiarity. When I got off the plane, I had a text from the news anchor who was there to film a story about us for the local channel and paper, letting me know she was in the baggage claim area. I stopped at the bathroom before heading there and looked at myself in the mirror, holding back tears, feeling the pulse of my heart reminding me I was entirely alive, and this was entirely real, and it was happening soon now. After a lifetime of wondering, here I was, in some random small-town airport, about to meet the sister I never knew I had but somehow always missed.
Yesterday was a hard day. I got lost in a swirl of doubt, in the well of grief that tends to arise around my birthday (May 10th), in the delicate place of not quite feeling like I know where to go or what to do next, feeling a bit alone in it all. It is a familiar feeling, this loneliness — a hollow ache I’ve held for a lifetime, one that may never go away because of the circumstances I navigate. The way my life started and what unfolded as a result will never not be part of who I am. The wound around family, abandonment, grief and identity rests in the deepest layers of me, rising higher now and then. My birthday always brings it up a little closer to the surface, reminding me it still needs tending. In the weeks leading up to it, I wonder why everything feels a little harder, a little more tender, a little more edgy… and then I remember.
Before finding my sister (and then so much more), I didn’t know how to tend to this ache. I didn’t think there was a salve for it; I assumed it was something I needed to just carry, hoping for the days where the ache would be more dull. And in some ways, that’s true. Sometimes, no matter how much healing or work or growth we do, certain wounds of ours will require our tending for a lifetime not because we’re incapable or broken or immature, but because some wounds aren’t penetrable by fixing — only by continuous, ongoing nurturing. Some wounds become so woven into who we are that separating from them entirely would be to separate from ourselves; the only option is to learn how to embrace those wounds with care, with understanding, with kindness.
But ever since that warm, bright Summer Solstice in Idaho, I’ve been able to circle back to that day as a reminder of possibility — as a tangible thing to reference when I forget all that lies ahead in ways I can’t ever predict — as an anchor that keeps me tethered to what’s possible in the unknown… not just what could go wrong, but what could go more right than I can even dream of from the version of my life I’m currently living.
When I sit in my living room feeling like nothing I do matters and asking myself what the point of any of this is, questioning everything with nowhere to sink into, I can look to that day and feel an expansion in my chest again. I can look to that day and trust in what’s coming, even if I don’t know what exactly it is or how I’ll get there. I can look to that day and remember what life was like before it happened, having no idea what was coming. I can look to that day and be reminded that there is so much at play beyond my own control, my own choices, my own vision of what could be.
Growing up, I never believed in miracles or magic, in a higher power or anything beyond me. What happened in 2015 was the first time I felt the energy of the universe in my life — the power of timing, of synchronicity, of trusting something bigger than myself. It was the first time I saw what is possible when I believe something greater than me is working alongside me — for me, it isn’t God or any figure at all; it’s a mystery I don’t try to solve or pretend to know, but something I choose to trust in when my small self can’t see beyond a difficult moment, beyond the pain, beyond what my narrow vision is able to hold. I never would have been able to vision meeting my sister, yet it happened. So now I know what is possible, even when I can’t see or feel it in the moment — even when I don’t know how to believe in it — even when all parts of this version of me want to doubt anything magical could be coming.
None of this means hard things aren’t ahead, too, or happening right alongside the magical. But it does allow me to soften into the unknown instead of only assume the worst. It allows me to leave room for the unimaginable — to remember my small place in things — to return to the goodness when it all feels like too much — to use the miracles that have already taken place as a resource to turn to when I don’t know how to see it all clearly. And for that, I am forever grateful, and I’m leaning on it now, until things feel a little easier again.
May we find what tethers us to possibility.
May we use those tethers as a resource when we forget.
May the unknown hold miracles and magic, mystery and expanded vision.
May we include goodness when we think of all that might unfold ahead.
May our worries be leveled out by our capacity to imagine.
May the best days of our lives serve as reminders to stay open to life.
May the beauty of what’s happened nurture us during moments of grief.
May we not let the cruelty of the world take away our ability to dream.
May we let what’s possible guide us during seasons it’s hard to see ahead.
May our wounds be tended by the things we couldn’t have ever dreamed of.
Thank you, as always, for being here.
△ Incredibly moved by this conversation: adrienne maree brown and Prentis Hemphill On Restoring Our Rhythm
△ Ursula K Guin’s daily routine:
△ From Roxane Gay: Making People Uncomfortable Can Now Get You Killed
△ Really appreciated this conversation: Creative Pep Talk with Maggie Smith
△ Just Go To the Shed -- a recent piece on The Imperfectionist
△ “It’s Very Cruel. I Think That’s the Point.”
△ Watch, Interpret, Select, Engage, Reflect
△ One Heart by Li-Young Lee
With care,
Lisa
Holy shit Lisa, I didn’t know this about you. This explains why I resonate with your writing. I discovered through DNA that I was an NPE in 2019, a secret my parents had taken to their graves. I’m working on a memoir describing unexplained odd feelings of disconnection I had throughout childhood and dive into exploring my mother’s history as an adoptee who was raised by her grandmother. It’s tentatively titled My Mother’s Ghosts. I don’t know when I’ll finish it or if it will ever get published, but it’s a great exploration of family history through genetic genealogy and historical research. Thanks sharing your writing, your life.
Lisa, the part about our wounds being so woven into us that we cannot fully separate from them without separating from ourselves...a revelation. I am going to sit with that one! It reminded me of a beautiful song called “Keep It Open” by Alexandra Blakely: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkpLLvUjmX1/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==