Unfolding.

Words, As Fruit. #28

Dec 31, 2023

In my attempts to pen something poignant and moving, worthy enough to bookend this year, I tried to ride just one thought train here. But this isn’t how my brain or my heart works. My heart and mind is a mixing and mingling of intersecting tracks of emotions, thoughts, feelings, and understandings, and for the most part, they are all moving in their own way, they all lead to somewhere meaningful and worthwhile. If at any point you find that the words here seem disjointed, know that they are internally connected, and intertwined.

The western calendar tells us that today is the finale, we have reached the “end of the year”. The point at which one measure of time seems to bend, crease and break into the next. But this isn’t really the end because time is an unfolding measurement; a “continued sequence of existence and events”. Time is never finished, or done, but always and only ever a continuing continuous.

More than a writer or a storyteller, I find, and have been told that I am more so a storykeeper. I collect and archive language, recount words, and journeys, sites, and memories. I am particularly moved by words and language that tell of the spaces in-between. The spaces where our senses, internal compass, and intuition begin to develop and sprout. The spaces of just-before-and-immediately-after, almost-but-not-quite, and-yet-but-still. The spaces where question marks meet ellipses, and sentiments are both complete, and-yet-still developing.

What if the “end of the year” is less a goal post, or closing, and more a point of passage?

Neither a departure or arrival, nothing starts or stops here. It continues, and perhaps even, lapses and suspends. The “end of the year” is a point at which many of us find ourselves feeling both in and out of place, and we want, maybe even think we need some kind of tah-dah! to prove that we have had a year that “counts” or “mattered”, that we count and matter. But this place that we feel ourselves moving in and/or out of, is not a place we can limit. This place, while familiar, is a medley of new, nostalgic, unpredictable, and different. It is in fact is not a place at all. It is a happening. It is the happening that inhabits time, even in moments where it seems as if nothing, or not enough, is taking place.

This happening is a reminder that time itself is an illusion. We cannot change it, we cannot stop it, or control it. This happening is a reminder that there is only now, and even “now” slips through our fingers like flowing waters. So what do we do? We let it, and be blessed in its flow.

It’s the happening that fills the seconds, minutes, and hours of our days, making life the tremendous journey that it is. From here the journey continues. The journey as an unfolding. The journey as questions, not alway asking us to answer, but calling for us to sit in consideration, in contemplation, in mindfulness, mindfully aware of this illusion, of this here, of this now.

“They say if you're still enough, what you're searching for will present itself. If you're quiet enough, you'll be able to hear all the messages it has sent to you. If you're focused enough, you'll see how everything connects, and you'll be able to follow every moment that has brought you here.”
— Julien James, Artist/Photographer

Over the last week, since I began scribbling down words and thoughts, trying to figure what was important or meaningful enough to share, many questions have come to mind (the words are always in answer to a question). Of them are these:

What am I meant for?

Who do I want to be?

It was this question, “Who do you want to be?”, posed by my therapist earlier this year, that created a kind of ripple in me. It is not a question you answer quickly, and then discard. It is a question that moves with you, whispering to you, and you listen for what wells up each time the question returns seeking inquiry.

“Who do you want to be?” is a question that begs me to consider, more heavily, the internal versus the external, the intangible versus tangible; the elements, and minutia of my psyche, the center of motivation, thought and feeling, and the depths and breath of my conscience, or the lacking thereof.

The question, “What are we meant for?” comes from these last lines of ‘Dignity’, chapter one of author Cole Arthur Riley’s book, ‘This Here Flesh’.

Cole writes:

“Our liberation begins with the irrevocable belief that we are worthy to be liberated, that we are worthy of a life that does not degrade us but honors our whole selves. When you believe in your dignity, or at least someone else does, it becomes more difficult to remain content with the bondage with which you have become so acquainted. You begin to wonder what you were meant for.”

I don’t know yet what I am meant for. I don’t know that I know anything at all. In fact as I write, I simultaneously wonder if I should continue because all of this is just thought and internal ponderings pouring out and meeting the page. But I don’t write to stake claim to knowing. I write as a citing — recording, documenting, transcribing — of change. Nneka Julia calls it an “archive of understanding.” Writing is a tangible bearing of witness to the transformations happening within, and around me.

So let me restate, I don’t yet know what I am meant for, but I do believe I am meant for something and this meaning is not solely for, or about me. Our meanings are connected and intertwined. To live out or be in service to our meaning is to honor this connection. To be in service is one of the reasons I believe we are all born. So these questions, “What am I meant for?” and “Who do I want to be?” are significant in the fact that “I” is perpetually also “we”. Who I am has some bearing on who you are, just as who you are has some bearing on who I am. So the questions then are also:

What are we meant for?

Who do we want to be?

To quote James Baldwin,

“Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon and look around you. What you gotta remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you.”

Above almost everything I believe I am a feeler. I choose to feel, even and in-spite of the depths of aching feeling often brings, because to feel is to breathe, fully and deeply, and breath allows for life.

I believe I am salve, a “balm for wounds left open” (words once written to me by Stephanie Leah).

I believe I am thick and heavy. Thick like the love Toni Morrison once spoke of and heavy like weight. Not the kind that sinks you, but the kind that grounds you, anchors you, and holds you steady.

I believe I am a bridge, like nayyirah waheed describes,

“if i write what you may feel but cannot say. it does not make me a poet. it makes me a bridge. and i am humbled and i am grateful to assist your heart in speaking.”

I believe I am a writer, and to be a writer is to choose not to squander this gift and instead, despite doubt and fear, allow it to compel me, and show me how to, through words, continue to break open and openly break, boldly and unapologetically.

Fellow writer and poet Kim Davalos (kd) says,

“the practice is always messier than the prayer.”

My prayer is that I remain devoted to the practice so that I may listen and learn, catch and release, accept and let go.

I am still growing into being a better listener. I want to listen more than I speak because listening is how we hear the wisdom in the wind. Listening urges us to feel. Listening allows us to connect. Listening makes room and invites us to see, and to understand.

I want to be evidence of a life Spirit led, and Spirit fed. To be in flow and at peace, even during periods of life that feel stagnant. I hope to grow into the art and practice of welcoming pause, and receiving the healings of stagnant’s stillness.

I want to be able to, from moment-to-moment, recognize what is important. Not what I make important but what is actually sacred, concerning, and pressing, in need of attention, time, presence or care.

I want to be willing and able to take paths of resistance, especially when the paths lead to communal joy, well-being, freedom and relief.

I want to take all the chances and all the risks even when I may not feel brave enough to take and choose them.

I want to step out on faith and trust myself every time, because to do so means that I trust the shoulders I stand on, generations of elders forever present, willing and able to hold, carry, usher and guide.

I want to be joy-filled and curious.

I want to be more heartful, loving, mindful and careful.

I want to be my favorite place.

I believe I am a haven in human form.

Doyin is one of my favorite words in Yoruba. It means to pour honey; to make sweet.

I want to pour honey over this life, allow it to be fruitful, supple, and rich with nectar.

Share Words, As Fruit.

From year-to-year, month-to-month, day-to-day, down to the seconds, I am growing, new layers emerging, deepening into new depths. I have let life, and this world, people I have met, words I have read, movies I have watched, and art I have looked upon split me open and bring me deeper into communion with myself and others, near and far.

I am starting and ending today, Sunday, December 31, 2023, in the same way I began and ended yesterday, and will begin and end tomorrow, and everyday after — in gracious gratitude. “Honoring the privilege of being alive.” — Xenia Viray.

I recognize this privilege is also a responsibility.

We are responsible for each other just as we are responsible for ourselves.

We are the bird in our hands.

Time is one of the most precious gifts we are given.

We receive it over and over again, day after day.

I don’t have any goals for the calendar new year. My deepest desires are beyond a checklist (but this doesn’t mean I won’t still be making them). I do, however, believe I have assignments. Today, tomorrow and everyday after, my assignment is to savor this gift of time, to sit with, and in it. Both the comforting and uncomfortable, I do not want to spend anymore time trying to find or know all the answers, or posturing as if I have them. Instead, I want to live out the questions.

I want to be like time, unfolding.

Just before sending, I shared this post with my mother, and she reflected that in her 20’s and 30’s she knew she was here to do amazing things. She began questioning when these things would happen and in her late 30’s realized that she was already being and doing the amazing, everyday. I asked my mother if she could give me her own definition of amazing, she said,

“I have no idea what amazing means. If I think in terms of the awe and wonder of life, being open, available and present, is amazing.”

I hope the words shared here, over the last 365 days, have planted seeds within you. And I hope you are watering yourself, so that you are the fruit that is beared.

— eniafe isis, ‘words, as fruit.’

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” — Rainer Maria Rilke