Today’s journaling / reflection prompt: What are you feeling stuck with these days? When or how do you feel it? What does it actually feel like in your body? What do you wish were different about the stuckness? What is the stuckness teaching or telling you?
It’s laundry day, and I’m thinking of the word “spin cycle.” How there’s a beginning and an abrupt end to the word, not like what it’s describing at all — and not like the spin cycle I find myself in these days.
One of the surprising things about co-habitation with K is how much routine grounds him. Every morning, he goes through the same motions that I sleepily register through his sounds. Slippers shuffling into the kitchen, one foot heavier than the other. Coffee brews, bread pops down then up with that metallic swing of the toaster, fruit peel softly sliding down the sides of the garbage bag, crispy “shhh” as the lid closes. Shower. Morning news from the BBC. Fast password typing as he logs into work.
A choreographed dance, an organized delight, the same every day.
I, on the other hand, lop off the bed (is that even a word? it should be), drag the bedsheets over my side haphazardly, grab my glasses from the bedside table, or the floor where I’ve knocked them to. Then, stumbling into whichever room or activity helps me feel more alive, try to shake off my dreams. My main goal is to inhabit a sense that this Groundhog Day is different than the one before that, and the many long similar days ahead — and ultimately failing. (“)
Because - mornings aside, life is now made up of concentric circles and loops expanding ever outward. Thankfully. Graciously. “Every day is the same,” MJ wisely prophesized a few weeks ago. She was right. A routine has formed, protecting me in a small, knowable bubble, like I’ve been doing it for years - but it’s one that feels like it’s ageing me, instead of one I’m living through.
The predictable weekend chores schedule; a long walk around the pond every Saturday afternoon; a few hours of piano practice and vacuuming afterwards. Every workday, the same rhythm of meetings, emails, work time, and signing off.
There’s a nice feeling of comfort in limbo. A safe cocoon where nothing irregular can pierce it.
But this morning, I felt something turning. A voice in my head, on repeat - “where are you?”
Seeing mud squelch under my boots on our walk. It normally makes me so giddy - just look at that mud! And I hear myself laugh, yet feel whole worlds away.
It scared me how I could simply not be there. A numb rest of the day.
Suddenly, it’s 5pm and the sun has set and it feels like I’ve returned to yesterday, the same sunset, same cold legs suddenly registering the night.
Where do I go in these long hours? What happens to all this lost time?
I sometimes catch myself in the Zoom call waiting room, and I’m surprised at how dull my face reads. Just - completely neutral. No life in the eyes. A perfect metaphor for this place of stuck - where I plod along without any hopes or expectations for what’s next, no feelings or connection to what’s past.
It’s the feeling that’s always at the edges of something beginning to shift — something new, just on the horizon, the frustration and pain eventually firing up the kiln that propels me into a different perspective.
“I’m a better person when I move,” someone told me months ago, on their exercise routine. It was a two-second remark that has stayed with me for weeks now. I come up empty when I ask myself, “what helps me be a better person?”
After so many years of navel-gazing and getting so tired of hearing my own voice in my head, all these ebbs and flows and slow transformation, what else can be unknowable?
All I can tell myself is: stay here. Even if here is elusive and difficult and weird and boring.
Something is starting; I’m excited to discover what’s at the other side of stuck.
Margin Notes
Hello dear friend. Every have that weird surreal feeling that you’re not in your own skin? Yeuggh, I’m trying to write my way out of it, but maybe I really just need to move my body, shower, and do something that takes me out of the virtual world and the desk I’ve glued myself to day in, day out.
Today, K and I overheard two people in deep conversation by the pond, where one said to the other - right when they walked past us - “like, we were just both really tactile with each other.” I raised my eyebrows and we had a little giggle about it just out of earshot. Maybe the secret to all this #moodyreflection is to be out in the world in some safe, socially-distanced way, “get tactile,” hehe 😉
On a more serious note, the news this month has been tough to face. The #StopAsianHate movement in the US for Asian Americans has encouraged deeper reflections and action. I hope to write more about race and identity in future emails. Let me know if you ever want to talk about these topics.
Until next time, be well, sending you big hugs, Kerri
Photo by Lerone Pieters on Unsplash
—
Currents is a biweekly newsletter with essays and prompts to discover your joy and live a more meaningful life through reflection. Subscribe to get these in your inbox. If you liked today’s reflection, forward to your favorite people to let them know you’re thinking of them.
Leave a comment or reply to this email to let me know what’s on your mind? ❤️